I made 7 quilts last winter for a local women whose first husband died of cancer nearly 10 years ago. She had been saving boxes of his clothes all this time for a quilt project and through a series of events they ended up with me. I took boxes of his old clothing and turned them into 5 quilts for their 5 sons for Christmas across 4 weeks. It was probably more work than I should have tried to take on in so short a time.  After the holidays I made 2 more from just his t-shirts and polo shirts. These ones were much simpler to construct and came together quickly. The father was a collegiate and semi-pro baseball player at one point in his life so there were many special shirts in there from his youth and from years of local softball leagues. I didn't want the shirts to lose their identity when cut into smaller patchwork squares so that's why we agreed to let them be their own quilts that the family can share. Technically all of these are "blankets" and not "quilts...

I love rompers with snap crotches for babies. They are just so much easier for changing diapers than peeling off layers of onesies and bottoms. I made several rompers for the baby in the last year. Some I made from a purchased pattern and other from free patterns. I like to recycle old clothes for these or use clearance remnants from the fabric store.  Made from a thrifted t-shirt using a free online pattern I altered so it would have longer sleeves and pants. Pattern from Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop Same pattern from Peek-a-Boo Pattern Shop My own pattern modeled after an existing romper. Made from an old t-shirt of mine.

 My friend commissioned me to make some Victorian-era inspired costume skirts. She gave me a pattern which was for a basic A-line Victorian skirt and I made improvements to it. I added linings, trim, and the red skirts I made with adjustable waistbands by adding hidden buttonhole elastic.  Of course they took longer than I thought they would because I was basically inventing how to make the changes as I went, I inevitably made mistakes, and I endured technical difficulties, but I am happy with how they turned out. They look pretty meh hanging there, but they looked very nice on bodies over proper petticoats. There were two other existing skirts I spruced up but didn't get a photo of.

The yellow purse I've been using the last year or so recently started having zipper problems. I've been like 85% happy with the purse overall and I decided I wanted something a little bigger these days, so  before taking it apart to replace the zipper I'd try to make another purse. I liked the look of this tutorial so I used mostly materials from my stash to make one. I did need to buy some interfacing, hardware, and heavier zippers. I'm fairly happy with the construction. Instead of a magnetic clip I put in a zipper across the top because I don't love magnetic closures. When I toss my purse into the car I don't want stuff spilling out. I also added an internal zippered pocket using the same method as the external pocket. I used the purse for a few days then realized it was smaller than I expected. It's deeper than the old purse but narrower. Also the nylon strap a bought to save myself the trouble of making a strap was uncomfortable on my neck.  Enter purs...

Grandparents can be hard to find gifts for. My parents love photo gifts but they only have so much wall and table space for frames and calendars and books. I found an idea HERE  and I thought it would make a perfect grandparent Christmas gift since my parents have the type of tree with all the ornaments accumulated over a lifetime. I already had most of the necessary supplies. I made ornaments in 2019 for my parents and a set in 2020 for my in-laws. First I gathered photos of my parents/in-laws as children and young adults and their parents as youth and young adults. I raided family history websites and solicited other relatives I knew had images. The first set of ornaments I made I used an app on my phone to erase the backgrounds but it was a bit tedious. I learned from the experience and for my in-laws I educated myself on how to do the same thing in Photoshop. I also digitally drew outlines about 1" around each image to make sure each image had enough room for a boarder/seam al...

 I've wanted to make reusable produce bags for a long time. I just find the flimsy plastic ones annoying and I like to find ways of eliminating single use items in my life. We already regularly use reusable grocery bags so it won't be a stretch to grab these bags too. I decided to make my bags out of mosquito netting because it's super cheap and super light. Mosquito netting may not hold up to heavy use, but we typically buy only a week's worth of produce at a time so we're hardly ever buying lots of one thing. I think they will hold up just fine with a few apples or potatoes at a time.  I wanted a strong but light and washable drawstring so I used a very thin ribbon I had as the drawstring and used two types of closure: ribbon with a bead for a toggle and two ribbons that draw from opposite ends. The weight difference is undistinguishable.  The biggest bag came to 0.4 oz when measured with my mail scale. When I did the math, the weight of that bag would add only 2-...

A sewing machine dust cover has been on my to-do list for a while. I used this tutorial to guide me. I used a jelly roll I bought on clearance once upon a time for the exterior and pockets, double sided fusible foam interfacing someone gave me for the "batting", a fat quarter for the sides, and muslin for the inner lining. I added pockets on the side for storing the food pedal because it gets in my way when I'm not using it; it's like 98% of why I wanted to make a cover. I quilted the stripes by stitching in the ditch with clear thread. I didn't bind the seams like in the tutorial. I just serged the inner seams and rolled under and stitched the lower edge.  I might go back later to make an opening for the machine's handle. I didn't do it now because it was late and I just wanted to finish up and go to bed. I'm really happy with it! I tried to make a quick and dirty cover a month or so ago and it turned out pretty crappy. This is a worthy upgrade. Now ...

After my first test pieces this dresser went pretty smoothly and much faster. Part of that was the joinery was simpler, and part of it is I had all the tools and design finished before I started. I based my design on this tutorial then modified it to match my own aesthetic.  We have a Black and Decker Matrix power tool which allows the user to buy different attachments to use it as different tools. We have the circle saw attachment but it's a pretty small blade and not adjustable so it's not great for ripping down big sheets of plywood. We have a table saw but it requires two people to cut a full sheet of plywood because the sheet is so big and our table saw is a small job site saw.  So I bought myself a new 7 1/4 in circle saw from Harbor Freight (my new favorite store 😍) so I could cut down the big sheets by myself with greater ease on the work table. It worked great. I rough cut pieces a little bigger with the circle saw then cut them precisely to size on the table saw....

As the next step toward building myself a dresser, I made myself a nightstand. I've been using a step stool for a nightstand for a while and it was really getting old. This also seemed like a logical step in my learning process. I used skills I learned for the box (mitered corners, dados) and added to it drawer making, drawer slide installation, and leg construction and attachment This took me way too long to finish. I knew what I wanted it to look like, but didn't have all the specific design details decided in advance. It took me a while to figure out what kind of legs to put on it, what wood to use, and how to cut and attach them. It kind of became a "give a mouse a cookie" scenario where I decided I wanted to do one thing, but that necessitated a tool or a jig or a whatever in order to do it so I'd go about procuring/making that first before I could go back and finish the step I originally started with. The good thing is I now have a complete design with all t...

I wear clothes designed for women, so for my whole life I've suffered from Girl Pockets . I decided to finally do something about it. Enter Pocket Extenders. I referenced lots of YouTube videos and tutorials to get an idea of what I wanted then did my own version.  Basically I turned my pants inside out, cut off the bottom of the pocket, inserted a prepared pocket extension from cotton fabric I had on hand, sewed them together, then turned the pants right side out. Pocket fabric tends to fray badly so I took the extra step to serge the seams to clean them up but I found that does add bulk to the junction between the old and new parts of the pockets which creates a visible pocket line when wearing if the pants are fitted. I don't really care about that, I'd rather have the clean hem. In addition to improving my casual pants, I added phone pockets to my athletic pants as well. I had a couple pairs of shorts that had pockets built in and wanted to spread the goodness. Also I d...

I have a habit of having in mind exactly what I want in something I want to acquire, shopping all over and not finding precisely what I want, and then determining to fabricate the thing myself (or more accurately, usually asking my husband to make it). My current occupation is remodeling our master closet. I want to put a small dresser on my side and since I can't find what I want to purchase, I found free plans to make a dresser in the style I want. It seems simple enough but in a moment of self-realization I acknowledged to myself I have close to zero experience with woodworking and decided to make a small project using some of the skills that are required to build a dresser to make sure I don't totally screw up the end goal. Last weekend my husband taught me how to use our table saw and dado stack and supervised while I did the actual cutting. Then I assembled this box all by myself using techniques I've seen used by various woodworking YouTubers. I learned to cut mitere...

I used to have a prodigious t-shirt collection, mostly shirts you get from participating in sports and school activities and travelling. My style, activities, and size have evolved over the years so I cut up my old shirts to make a t-shirt quilt. That only required the front and/or back design so I kept the shirt remnants. I cut up the remnants into strips to make t-shirt yarn. Most of the shirts are about 1.5" wide strips but some I did wider if they were a thinner fabric in order to maintain consistent yarn size.  I made myself a loom based on this tutorial , strung it with some yarn I had on hand, then wove this lovely rug.  I started out by looping the lengths of t-shirt yarn together like the tutorial shows but later I discovered that gluing the strips was faster, a lot less work, and produced a smoother rug. I use this fabric adhesive . It sets up fast and strong and rubs off easily if you get it on your fingers. It doesn't dry clear though and it can be easy to use too ...