Maddie makes a pillow

Maddie used the sewing machine for the first time. She made a pillow. We bought a fat quarter at Jo-Ann fabric. Maddie and I folded it in half and pinned it around the edge. I marked a spot for her to stop sewing.

I helped her turn the corners, but she was a champ with the sewing machine!

 She did most of the stitching herself. I knotted it off at the end.

A VERY proud little maker.

Been a while!

Just because I haven't been posting, doesn't mean I having been Making, fixing, building or creating. I've just been lazy about updating. I will try to do better!

I have a couple of projects coming up in the next couple of weeks and I plan on posting my pizza making schema. It's a combination of a recipe and a process and a whole lot of tweaking!

It's January, so I won't be brewing much. I'll start up again in full swing in March. My goal is 25 batches again this year. I missed that goal last year. I only got to batch 23.

Projects on deck are:

1. Camera interval timer (arduino)
2. Curtains for the Dining room and the kids rooms.
3. Finishing building my new Ubuntu main computer.

It's not all glamorous, but it's all making!

A "Cat in the Hat" hat for Dr. Suess' birthday

Making a hat

My son's school is celebrating Dr. Suess' 107th birthday on Monday. The parents were asked to make something Suessian for the kids to wear to school. Being an over-achiever I decided to make a red and white striped hat. This is actually not the first hat I've made, but I am amazed at how well it came out.

It started with 3 pieces of red felt and 4 pieces of white. I edged stitched along the short side two pieces of red and two pieces of white for the stripes. Mason's head is 20 1/2" around so I needed 21 1/2" with seam allowances. I also edge stitched two pieces of white along the long edge to use for the brim.

Edge stitching:

Then I flattened the seams to make the rest of the process easier.

I cut two 3" x 21 1/2" strips of white felt and 1 of red felt. The other red felt strip was more of a art than measurement. I sewed them wrong sides out and then flipped them over and satin stitched them from the outside. This was mostly to give the hat a little structural integrity, but it also looks good.

Satin stitching:

I didn't get a picture of the top red strip and I wish I had. It was 21 1/2" across the bottom, 24" across the top, 3" tall at the center and 4 1/2" tall at each end.

After stitching that together, I sewed the opposite seam of the hat making it a tube. I flipped it over and shaped the top edge the way I wanted it and traced and cut a piece for the top.

Top piece:

I sewed the top and the brim on (sorry, no pictures) and then trimmed the brim, freehand, flipped it over and sewed a bead around the edge of the brim.

Finished hat:

Making monsters

This morning I had the kids draw monsters for me. Then we cut them out of fabric an while they're "napping" I sewed them up.
My 3.5 yo son drew a big slug. He wanted his monster to be like Roz from Monsters Inc.
My 5 yo daughter drew something simple.

Here are some pictures of the outcome.