Bunny Mittens, Part Two: The sewing.

Sewing Instructions for the Bunny/Monster mittens:

Some things:

All cut pattern pieces from step one (previous posting)
Sharp scissors
pins
thread to match your fabric
Something pointy like a chopstick to help turn things to the right side

Pin and then sew together the mitten wrist lowers with the palm pieces right sides together following the dotted lines. I used a one eighth inch seam allowance, almost the same width as my presser foot. Make sure you have a left and a right hand before you sew by laying them out as I have.

Cut a little slit into both layers right up to the stitching line in the areas I have marked blue in this picture.

With right sides together and making sure once again you have a left and a right hand, pin and stitch along the yellow line again using a one quarter inch seam allowance. Fold the thumbs in and up out of the way. The slits you cut should make sewing over the thumb area easier.

This is how they should look now.

Pin and sew the lining using the same instructions as before.

Turn the outside, or colourful part of the mitten right side out, and then put your hand in the lining (keep it wrong side out). Push the lining into the outside mitten with your hand inside.

This is where we are. You should have what looks and feels like the warmest softest mitties ever. The bottoms just need to be stitched together. That'll come later, don't worry!

For the ears you will need to pile a felt piece onto each of the fleece pieces right sides together. Pin and sew around each ear using a quarter inch seam allowance and leaving the bottom flat side of the ear open.
(They look like they are different sizes here, but the aren't. I think it's an angle thing. All the ear pieces should be the same size and shape.)

Here is the ear stitched.

Trim away extra seam allowance very carefully using sharp scissors. Don't cut up to or through the stitching, take your time. You want the smallest seam allowance left. It should be about one sixteenth on an inch after trimming.

Turn the ears right side out. Make sure to poke up into the tip to make it a sharp point.

Starting about three quarters of an inch in, sew a line around the edge of each ear. It should be an eighth of an inch from the edge. Leave the bottom of the ear open.

Here are all your pieces ready for the hand finishing process. You should have two mittens with open bottom seams and four ears with open bottom seams.

I'm so excited to finish these!
I'll post the hand finishing instructions after supper.

Bunny Mittens. Part One: Pattern and fabric.

This week I'm gonna share the monster mitten pattern we used for most of our Holiday gift giving. We made bunnies and dinosaurs and kitties. It's an easy three piece pattern that you can make for any size hand. Just add whatever decorations and trims you would like to create various animals and monsters.

Some things:

About a quarter yard of fleece for the outside of the mitten
About a quarter yard of fleece for the lining
Small remnant of red fleece for the palm (or mouth)
Contrasting felt for the trim (ears, scales, etc...)
Sharp fabric scissors
chalk or way to mark the pattern on the fabric
cardboard
ruler

Mitten Top:

Trace your hand onto the cardboard, thumb in, and add about three quarters of an inch all the way around. Your seam allowance will be one quarter inch. You need room to move inside the mitties.

Mitten palm:
Measure from the top of your fingers to where your thumb starts and retrace that top part of the mitten top piece onto another piece of cardboard, add a thumb piece onto the side tracing your own thumb and adding a three quarter inch border.

Mitten Wrist Lower:
Measure from where your thumb starts to where the pattern ends at the wrist and add the same thumb shape you did for the palm piece. Make sure to add a one quarter seam allowance to the straight line between the palm piece and the wrist lower.

Ears:
Draw ear shapes on the cardboard and give them a quarter inch seam allowance.

General measurements of the palm piece including seam allowances. Make sure to measure the hand that will get the mitten to make sure they will fit.

The wrist lower basic measurements including seam allowances.

Mitten top basic measurements including seam allowances.

Pieces cut for mitten palm:
Two pieces of lining, Black.
Two pieces of red fleece to represent the mouth of the mitten.
Make sure to cut one for the left hand and one for the right if your fabric has two sides.

Pieces for mitten wrist lower:
Cut two of lining, Black.
Cut two for the bottom wrist of each mitten. Make sure to cut one for each hand as above if you are using two sided fabric like I am. You should be able to see that the pink fabric has one cut on the right side and one on the wrong creating a left and right hand piece.

Pieces for mitten tops:
Cut two of the lining and two of the outside fabric. these pieces will be the back of the mitten. You don't have to worry as much about creating a left and right piece here because the pattern for this piece is symmetrical. You should be able to flip it over and it will be the same.

Ear pieces:
Cut four pieces for the backs of the ears, and four for the front or insides of the ears. I used the same fabric I used for the body for the backs of the ears and white felt for the inside. My ears are about three inches wide by about seven inches long including seam allowances.

We're ready to start sewing. I'll post the rest of the instructions later so you can see how I put these little guys together.
Get your sewing machines dusted off and oiled up.
It's gonna be fun!

Some nail art using polymer clay canes.

Just thought I'd show you what we are using the polymer clay canes for. Here are some pics of nail designs we've done in the last few weeks using the cane slices.
I'll add new designs as we get them done so you can get more ideas.

I dared the stiletto nail. (They were shortened to a more manageable length for work) But I love them!!!

The roses are pretty simple cane work in black and red sparkle.

These are some tiny hearts done using the same techniques. They belong to my teen daughter. She is a nail chewer. I had to elongate her natural nail bed, then add the extension then the design then an overlay.

I hope they last, her nails are so small. We're hoping they'll have a chance to grow out a bit under all that acrylic.

Lost Project, Worlds Best Birthday Cake

Found another documented "Making of Something".
It really is (in my humble opinion)
the worlds best birthday cake.
So much fun to make and even more fun to cut into. We got the inspiration for this project from a fabulous blog called

www.omnomicon.com

The recipe for the cake is there.
(plus many more delicious treats!)

Here I will let you see how easy it was to create.

My oldest daughter made this cake for my youngest and we all watched in amazement. It is now a family tradition and everyone asks for a rainbow cake.


Some things:

Betty Crocker white cake mix (one box for two layers)
Loads of food colouring,
(we used paste for this one but liquid works too, just use more)
cake pans, mixing bowls, wooden spoons, spatulas, mixers,
(makes LOADS of dirty dishes)
Doweling of some kind to hold the cake up
cardboard rounds to go underneath each layer
Fondant icing
Butter cream icing
rolling pin
icing sugar
oven
oven mits

Mix up your cake batter following the package directions. separate it into four or five little bowls. (The more bowls the more colours you'll have in the finished cake.) Add food colouring to each bowl until you are happy with the colour vibrancy. We tried to make rainbow colours.
Red
Yellow
Pink
Green
Purple
Orange
Blue
Accuracy doesn't seem to matter here as much as colour saturation. Make it bright.

Plop a spoonfull or two of batter into the bottom of your prepared (floured and buttered) baking pans. Add another colour onto that one, putting it in the middle of the previous colour. Keep layering like this until each pan is 3/4 full.
Don't spread 'em out. It'll wreck it!

Bake the cakes following the instructions on the box and let them cool. Cut a bit off the top of each layer to make them flat.
(Eat the trimmings!)

This is my Mom watching my oldest daughter be AMAZING!

Each layer was covered in butter cream icing and placed on a cardboard round the same size as the cake. Then Fondant was rolled out using icing sugar to keep it from sticking to the table. Roll the fondant out to about 1/4 inch thick and cover the cakes. Use the rolling pin to lift the rolled fondant sheets onto the cake. Smooth the fondant icing out with a fondant smoother or the back of a spatula. Before you pile the cakes ontop of each other insert three dowels evenly into each layer. (the top layer doesn't need any dowels.) The dowel should be as tall as each layer. Dowels and cardboard rounds keep the cake from sagging.

We used coloured fondant to decorate our cake. we rolled it out and cut shapes from it. We also sculpted it like clay.

We ran out of icing sugar and started using corn starch to stop the icing from sticking to us and the table while we were working with it.

All done waiting for the party!!

Soooooooooo HAPPY!!!!!
The best birthday cake in the world!

Lost Project Vintage Ribbon Rose

Things I've done today:

made a huge dent in the couch with my butt
made a little cloud of dead skin cells
made a mess in the kitchen
(home made potato soup om nom nom)
made this blog!
Found an old instruction folder I made forever ago but never did anything with.
Here are the instructions


Some things:

a few yards of flower coloured ribbon at least 1 1/2 inches wide (satin or velvet doesn't matter)
fabric tac to glue the rough ends up so they don't fray
matching thread
hand sewing needle
scissors

Cut a piece of flower coloured ribbon about 8 inches long and glue the ends together so the rough edges are well hidden. Let it dry a bit.

Thread the sewing needle with matching thread (I used contrasting so you could see what I was up to) Sew 1/4 inch stitches all the way around one edge. Stop where you began but don't knot it off.

Gather the stitches by pulling the thread until the opening in the middle of the flower is about 1 inch wide. Knot it to secure the stitches.

Cut another matching piece of ribbon (or contrasting, what the heck, lets experiment) about four inches long. Glue up the ends so the rough edges don't show. Let it dry a bit.

Gather both sides of the ribbon until it's only 1 1/2 inches long. Knot the ends to secure.

The little gathered piece should just fit onto the hole in the flower middle.

Glue or hand stitch the middle of the flower over the opening.

Cut a piece of green leaf coloured ribbon about 6 inches long. Fold so the ends meet right sides together and gather up one side. You will be catching both layers of ribbon when you gather creating a seam that is gathered. Pull the gathering stitches until they are about 1 1/2 inches long.

Unfold the ribbon, it should look kind of like a leaf.

Glue or hand stitch the leaves to the bottom of the flower.

I added an extra layer of flower around the outside to make the flower fuller looking. Make it the same as the first step but don't gather it quite as much.


Add the flower to a pin back or a hair clip or a shoe or belt and enjoy.

Polymer Clay Skull Cane.

I only used black and white polymer clay for this one.
Make a cylinder of white clay that is two inches wide and one inch deep. Cut it in half using a razer and push two indentations into the flat edge for eyes.
(Ignore the little rectangle cheeky bits, I ended up not using them.)

Put worms of black clay in the pencil indentations and cover the flat edge with a 1/2 inch sheet of white. Cut a triangle shape in the middle of where the eyes are and fill it with a triangular worm. Cover this with a 1/8 inch sheet of white.

Make five or six rectangular worm shapes that are about an inch long. cover every other one in a thin black layer. Stack them together and cover any white edges with more thin black. put them where the teeth go under the nose.

Pack black pieces into the cheek area and under the teeth. try to make it be roundish when done like the top of the skull. You should have a cylinder again with a skull inside.

Cover the white sides of the cylinder with a thin sheet of black.

Squish it in the center, gently pulling to make the cane longer as you squish.

After you have it about 4 inches long you can start to roll the cane to make it thinner.

Try to maintain the same thickness all along the cane as you go. Cut the cane to more manageable lengths if you need to.

You can make it as thin or as thick as you'd like. I made mine for nail art so it's about a 1/2 an inch thick.

Finished skull cane!

If you're using this for nail art, cut the cane into three or four inch lengths and bake it at 260 for 15 minutes. After it has cooled off you can use a razer to cut it into paper thin slices. It's easier to cut if you tape the cane to your cutting surface.