Custom Order Challenge

Hi!  Christmas is over, and New Year's Day is coming this week.  This has been a bittersweet holiday season for us, since we lost our parents earlier this year.  We've had a chance to reflect on childhood memories and the legacy our parents behind.  We are truly blessed.

We were busy this holiday season fulfilling orders for some customers.  So..... we decided to share some of those orders with you. You'll get to vote on your favorite.

Elephant Tote
One customer asked for a very big tote with elephant fabric for her daughter, who has twin boys.  This cute elephant fabric is from Edward Emberley. The lining is made of some very cute ladybug fabric. It is a huge tote and will be put to great use with lots of boy things.  Who doesn't like ladybugs, unless they're crawling on you.

Cat Pillows
This customer wanted 2 cat pillows -- one for her sister and one for her aunt.  And she didn't want them exactly alike, except for the cat fabric.  She liked them, so let's hope her family liked them, too.

When we are at craft shows, people always look for items that have animals on them.  People love their animals.

We hope this new year is a healthy and happy year for you and your family.  Stay tuned for more new challenges each month.  Remember to vote!!

Pillow Challenge

It's the end of September, and we're getting ready for our annual Chris Cringle show.  With that in mind, we decided that we our challenge this month would be one of the pillows we've made for the craft show.  Who doesn't like pillows?!  These are two bright pillows that would liven up any boring room.

Red Pillow
The front of the  first pillow is a Japanese red painting MUJI on linen cotton.  The back is a red houndstooth.  Houndstooth is one of my favorite fabrics.  The Japanese fabric is now out of print.

Dot Pillow
The second pillow is made of linen moochi dots fabric.  Each fabric was cut into 2" strips and then sewn together.  It was then cut again into 2" strips and sewn together.  Tedious, but fun.

All we ask for you to do right now is vote for your favorite pillow.  If you're in the Champaign, IL area on November 7th and 8th, you can visit our booth at the annual Chris Cringle show. These pillows will be available.  We hope to see you there!

October Challenge (a day late)

Our annual showing at Chris Cringle show starts today. Yay!  It's hard to believe that this is the 4th year we've been in the show.  Time flies when you're having fun!  We spent yesterday afternoon setting up our booth and fine-tuning the look of it.  We're ready to get the party started!

We've been working hard on all our merchandise this month, so please forgive us for having another pillow challenge 2 months in a row.  Last month, our challenge was to make something out of the same fabric.  We both happened to make a pillow.  Surprise, surprise.  Since we've been busy making pillows for the show, we decided we would each enter a pillow that we're selling as our challenge this month.  Makes sense, huh?  Why make something that we're not going to sell.

Lindsey Polka Dot Pillow

This pillow is made in honor of a friend, Lindsey, who loves polka dots.  I hope this pillow makes her proud!  The pieces are made of one-inch squares of polka dot fabrics.  The initial idea was to make it a random design, but the randomness kind of went away in favor of this awesome looking pattern.  Can't think of what the name of this pattern is, but it's fun and beautiful!

Anthropology Knock-off Pillow

Sometimes you see something you love that's really expensive, and you don't want to spend alot of money on it.  Or maybe you just can't afford it.  That's when you put your skills to work and make your own.  Call it copy catting.  Call it knock-offs.  Call it making it work on your budget and your taste.  That's what this pillow is.  I saw it at Anthropology and refuse to pay the full price. It's made with blue chambray.  This is my interpretation, and I love it!

Vote for your favorite pillow!  If you like both pillows and can't decide, then vote for both.  We won't be offended.  And if you really like the pillows and can't live without them (and you're in Champaign, IL today or tomorrow), come out and buy them.  That wouldn't offend us either.

December Sewing Challenge

Happy New Year (a day early).  I don't know where you are, but it's snowing again where I am.  I'm not too happy about that, either.

We had originally planned to create a spoonflower fabric and make something from it for our December challenge.  Since creating a fabric design is a big enough challenge all by itself, we decided to postpone that for a couple of months.  But stay tuned for it.  We are scheduled to do that challenge in February.

So, we needed a new challenge for December.  This is when we decided to reinvent an article of clothing.  We each knew immediately what we wanted to create.

The rules were simple.  Find an article of clothing you didn't mind never wearing again (if you ever wore it in the first place).  Then make something out of it.  It didn't have to be something to wear, but reinvent the piece of clothing.  We both chose a clothing item that wasn't ours and that neither of us had ever worn.

Funny thing.  We both made pillows, but out of totally different garments.  One of us made a pillow out of an old sweater.  The second one made several pillows out of our mom's old faux fur coat.

Before photos:

Vintage Wool Sweater

Our Mom's Faux Fur Coat

The first entry is a pillow made from a felted sweater.  This person went to a vintage clothing store and bought 4 old sweaters.  She wanted to felt the wool sweaters, so she washed them in hot water several times.  During this process, her dryer went on the fritz and she couldn't finish the job.  A couple weeks later, with a working dryer, she was able to wash and dry the sweaters again.  This felted the wool.

If you've never felted wool, it isn't really difficult.  Just know that the article must be 100% wool.  None of that polyester fake stuff will do.  And it will shrink.  The more you wash and dry the garment, the smaller and smaller it will get.

The first sweater she planned to used was so thick after felting it that she couldn't sew it.  It was too thick to fit in her sewing machine.

Sweater After It's Makeover:

 

The second entry was faux fur pillows.   Many years ago, our mom bought a faux fur coat.  I never knew she wanted one, but somehow, she ended up with it.  And she loved the thing.  When she finally quit wearing it, it hung in her closet for many years.  About 3 years ago, we moved our parents to an assisted-living apartment.  When we were cleaning out their house, we discovered the coat.  It smelled.  No one wanted it, but our older sister took it to her house.

3 years ago, we celebrated a milestone birthday (the number will go unmentioned).  Our husbands each had a surprise birthday party for us.  One party was in November, and the other was in December.  Our birthday is Christmas Day.

At the second birthday party, our older sister took twin #2 a surprise birthday present.  The fur coat.  She was so excited when she opened it.  Check out her response here.  Doesn't she look happy and excited?!  It still smelled bad.

A month later, twin #1 was visiting twin #2.  When twin #1 was packing up to go home, twin #2 and her husband kindly offered to help load her car.  After they had left for church, twin #1 got in her car and spotted smelled an unfamiliar box.  When she opened it, guess what she found. The fur coat.  and the smell.  Thanks.

The fur coat and the smell have been sitting in her garage for 3 years now.  Guess what!  The coat was made in the USA.

Cutting up and ruining an old fur coat is a scary thing.  Even if it is faux fur.  But first, let me get to the smell.  If we had planned this challenge earlier, there would have been plenty of time to air it out with the windows open.  But since it was early December when we made that decision, it was to cold to open the windows.  The tag on the coat indicated that cleaning should be done by a furrier.  The cost was going to be $75.  So the smell remained.  Even with 2 or 3 coats of febreeze, there was still a stench.  And faux fur flies and lands everywhere in your house.  Keep that in mind if you ever want to cut up your fur coat.

There are 7 kids in our family.  So, the plan was to make a fur pillow for each of them.  Hehe.  I wasn't sure if there would be enough coat for 7 pillows, but yes there was.  Here's how it broke down:

2 arms (with the elastic still in the cuffs) -- 2 pillows
2 front pieces (with pockets included) -- 2 pillows
1 big back -- 3 pillows

The 2 front pieces made really cool pillows.  Muffs, really.  Each side had a pocket, and I made sure the pockets were accessible in front.  Just like a muff.  a one-armed smelly muff.  I didn't use the collar, because it would have involved too much work removing all the thread.

These pillows were given out at our Christmas celebration the Saturday before Christmas.  Everyone was just delighted to get their pillow.  Our brother, Jeff, was unable to be with us that day.  But he called me a few days ago to thank me for his pillow.  His wife washed it in cold water on the gentle cycle (in a mesh bag), and then air dried it.  He said it came out fine with no matting.  Another hint if you ever want to was faux fur.  I would suggest not to wash the entire coat at one time.  Cut it up in manageable pieces first.  I haven't been brave enough to wash mine yet.

So, now that you know our story, you can vote on your favorite recycled garment.

We've revised our sewing challenge plans for 2013.  You will see the new ideas on the right.  We'll try to stick to them this year, but sometimes we just have to change our plans.  You know how life goes.

Pillow Challenge

If you look at our planned monthly sewing challenges, you'll notice that we change them.  Often.  We were supposed to do a rickrack challenge this month, but we're busy working on inventory for a craft show.  So...we decided to change our challenge to pillows.  We're both making some pillows for the show.  And who doesn't love a good pillow.

You can see that the pillows are both really cool, but really different.  We're the same.  Even though we're twins, we're different but very cool.  Both of us.  And so are the pillows.

Mitered Square Pillow

Christmas Pillow

These pillows will be for sale this Friday and Saturday, 11/1 -11/2 at the Chris Cringle Craft Show in Champaign, IL.  If you're in the area, stop by our booth and check out our merchandise.  You might need to pick up a pillow or two.  Or some other really cool item.

We're only a week away from election day.  Maybe you've already voted, and if you haven't, be sure to do so.  It's your right and privilege and duty.  Also, remember to vote for your favorite pillow.  They're both pretty cool, if you ask me.  And I only made one of them.

Remember, your vote is confidential.  We don't know who votes.  So, just vote!