Spoonflower Challenge

Have you ever dreamed of designing your own fabric?  Well, now you can.  There is a website called Spoonflower where you can actually design fabric.  Then you can even sell it, if you want.  Spoonflower even has a weekly contest, and you can vote for your favorite fabric design of the week.

Sooo...this month we decided to try our hand at designing fabric and then making something out of it.  How fun!  The problem?!  We can't draw.  One of us actually did draw the design, and the other one of us uploaded photos.

See how our fabric designs turned out, and vote for your favorite!!

Coral and Gray Drawstring Tote
For the cute drawstring bag, the Spoonflower design is the coral flower print and the coral stripes on the inside.  These are two fun prints that were hand drawn.  I could see a cute little girl's dress made out of these two prints.

All this stuff can fit inside the bag.

This bag isn't just pretty, but it is also hard working.

Old Lebanese Stamps Tote
 Photos of old stamps were uploaded to make a cool historical print.  Wouldn't these look great as pillows, too?  Or how about pajama pants?

Inside the tote

Stamps up close

What do you think?  Should we keep our day jobs or become fabric designers?  Hmmm.

Ribbon Sewing Challenge

The calendar says it's springtime, but this weather is telling us something much different.  Snowstorms at the end of March should be illegal.  We spent some time together in Washington, DC earlier this month.  We took a little break from sewing and had lots of fun doing our cupcake tour of the city.  Here's just a little taste of our trip!

Boston Creme Pie

Hazelnut

Lemon, Coconut and Chocolate

Red Velvet

But...our sewing challenge was a bright, fun challenge.  and it warmed our hearts.  All we had to do was make something with ribbon.  How fun is that!?

Wanna see what we came up with?

The first item is a really cool Burberry theme pillow.  The red ribbon really pops with all the neutral colors.  Very classy!

Burberry Pillow

Burberry with a Solid Pillow

The second item is a bright fun glass holder.  Beautiful strips of ribbon come together with fancy   sewing stitches.  Quick and easy and cute!

Love that combo of bright ribbons

I can find this glass holder in my purse!

I think we've both outdone ourselves this month.  Remember:  You can vote more than once!  :)

Amy Butler Weekender Tote Challenge

Have you ever made a piece of luggage?  I hadn't either.  Have you ever wanted to?  I hadn't either.  But now I can cross that off my bucket list.  I'm not sure I believe in bucket lists, but if I did and making my own luggage was on it, it would be crossed off.

Here are our new luggage pieces.  They are a great size to hold lots of goodies.  It's a great carry on piece if you're flying.  We both made the handles longer than the pattern indicated.  The plaid tote has extra long handles that can be used crossbody style.  The chevron tote has longer handles, but they're shoulder length.

Plaid Tote

Chevron Tote 

We have read alot of different blogs where people have described their experience making the scary Amy Butler weekender tote.  First let me explain who Amy Butler is...for those of you who don't know.  Amy Butler is a designer of fabrics, patterns, ribbon, rugs, wallpaper, wall art, stationery, handbags, luggage.  You get the idea.  She's a modern girl.  Just like us.  And the cool thing about Amy Butler is that she lives in central Ohio.  close to one of us.

Now, on to the story of making the weekender tote.  Since we had read so much about how difficult this pattern was, we decided that we would see for ourselves if the rumors were true.  The pattern itself isn't that difficult to make.  After all, there are only 3 pattern pieces.  How tough could it be?  Right?

Action photos:

Installing the lining

The tote inside out without the lining

Yes, those are binder clips.  
Pins wouldn't fit through the thickness.

Sewing the sides together

Our goal was to have our totes ready for our vacation in early March.  Yeah, we're going on vacation together to Washington, DC.  We'll see how they hold up.  They may come home filled with cupcakes.  Would that be a problem?

Here's what the inside of our totes looks like.  The pattern includes 4 outside pockets, but none on the inside.  What tote would be complete without inside pockets, so we both added some.  There is loads of room in this tote.

Animal Print inside the Plaid tote

Polka Dot inside the Chevron tote

We each had our own most troubling moments while making our totes.  Joy's worst moments were when she was sewing the lining to the inside of the tote.  Jan's worst moments were when she was sewing the second outside panel to the tote.  But we are survivors!  The trick was to go slow and be very, very patient.

WARNING #1:  This is not a beginner pattern, even though it has only 3 pattern pieces.  It can get a little dicey sewing with lots of layers.

WARNING #2:  If you're sewing with a non-industrial sewing machine, it will rebel.  But that's ok, it will survive.  Broken needles and cussing were not involved in the making of these two totes.

WARNING #3:  We're never ever ever making this pattern again.  Just for the record.  :)

January Sewing Challenge

So we're a day late in posting our January sewing challenge.  We've been a little busy this month.  One of us is working on a RED project.  Can't tell you the details yet, but it will be finished shortly.  Well, in time for Valentine's Day!!!  The other one of us has been busy getting ready to set up a display at a cool local shop that sells things made only in Ohio.  We're happy to report that the display is now up and open for business.

SO.....our January sewing challenge was to make an item out of a pre-cut bundle.  You may say....pre-cut bundle, what's that?  It's a bundle of fabric that's already cut up into different sizes. They're great for making small projects or big projects (like a quilt).  If you use them for quilts, you won't  have to do alot of crazy cutting.

Project #1 is a set of coasters made from the lovely "Little Black Dress" collection by Moda.  These fabrics are just beautiful.  The maker of these fine coasters forgot to take pictures of all the different fabrics, but you can get a glimpse of them here.  There are some masculine prints and some feminine prints, so they would make awesome pillows for your couch.

 

 

Project #2 is a set of beautiful ombre placemats made to look like a paint sample.  Ombre is one of my favorite styles of fabric.  If you're unfamiliar with ombre, it is fabric that has been given a dip-dye effect so the shades of color graduate from light to dark.  It is just beautiful!!  There are 7 placemats in this collection, and they are available for purchase for $50.  If you are interested in them, please let us know.  We can't tell you who made them just yet, but soon we can reveal that secret!

We are very excited about next month's challenge.  We will be making the Weekender Tote by Amy Butler.  It's a little scary and alot exciting.  We need to get really busy on these, because we're taking a trip together to Washington, DC in early March. We both need to have the totes done so we can put them to good use on the trip.

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.

First Sale of the Show Contest

A couple of weeks ago, we sold our goods at the Chris Cringle Craft Show in Champaign, IL.  If you've ever been brave enough to sell anything at a craft show, you know that at times it feels like you're not selling very much.  When the show starts, it usually takes awhile to get your first sale.  People are slow coming in, and they want to look around before they start buying.

Here are a couple of pictures of our booth.  We tried to make it colorful and fun.

Basket of Coin Purses

h. Camille Booth

This is our third year to have a booth at the craft show.  We have noticed that some people come back every year and buy from us.  There are a couple of regulars who come back every year.  Let me tell you about one of them.  I don't remember her name.  The first year, she came alone.  She looked at our products when she first came in, but she didn't buy anything.  She came back a little later and bought a wristlet.  I'm not sure why, but I remembered her face.  Last year, she was our first customer.  And she brought 2 other women with her.  They all made a purchase from us.  They seemed to like fabric with animals.

Guess what!  They were our first customers again this year.  And they all 3 bought something.  One of them purchased this very cute dog coin purse.

One of the other ladies (the one who has bought from us for all 3 years) picked out a cool blue elephant tote.  Her sister saw her holding it and wanted it.  Big sister wouldn't budge.  She saw it first, but younger sister said "but it's blue and has an 'F' on it."  Big sister still wouldn't budge.  So, I stepped in and saved the day.  I said to little sister, "I can make you another one just like it."  She had to think about it for a minute, but then said "Ok,  if you can make one exactly like it, I'll take it."

I rushed home that night and ordered some more blue elephant fabric.  It really is fun Japanese fabric.  It arrived in the mail 3 days later and I made a second blue elephant tote.  It should be in her hands at this very moment.

This month, we're asking you to vote on the first item we each sold at the craft show.  We've learned that people always want animals on their totes or coin purses or wristlets.  Who knew!?  Which would you prefer?  Red dogs?  Blue elephants?

Vote now.  Remember, as always, we don't know who votes or who you vote for.  Just vote!!

Oh, one more thing.  The second person who has purchased from us came to our booth this year.  She picked up something to buy and wanted to use her credit card.  We accept credit cards using our Square on an ipad.  We had really bad wifi reception and had trouble staying connected.  When we tried to get the sale to go through with her credit card, it just didn't work.  We tried several times and then she asked us to hold the item and she would be back for it.  She never came back.  Boo hoo!!  We lost a sale.

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!