Due to my new home’s renovation in progress, this year I don’t have time to make any Halloween costume for my kids. I am glad to discover Anshu of Blooms And Bugs’ Ladybug Tutu Halloween Costume. You will need to prepare the following to sew one for your lovely kid. If you are running out of time to sew a complicated costume, this could be great help as it only requires 2-3 hours.

Materials for Ladybug Tutu:

Mini Ruffle Fabric
Quarter inch elastic
6 inch Tulle Red
Red elastic
Elastic thread
Fake red flowers

I hope you enjoy your Halloween preparation as much as you do, I will rejoin you for more Halloween crafts next year.

Pop over to Anshu’s blog for detail tutorial.

TIP: Adapt this method and change the color theme to white to sew a white angel costume for Christmas.

Oh my goodness, this is a really spooky and fun to DIY Halloween costume I have ever seen. I know I have to feature it here and share with you all immediately I saw it. To make it even scarier, apply some bloody make-up to the face… You may adapt this method and come out with your own style of head holding Halloween costume.

Let see how Salty Bison, a contributor of 30 Handmade days DIY this Spooky Head Holding Halloween Costume, looks so easy to disguise. Hope to see someone dress-up in this costume during Halloween Party or Trick-or-Treating event.

Happy Boo ‘ing!!!

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sock-bunny-droop-ear-6

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As promised in my previous sock bunny sewing tutorial, here comes the kawai-i version – the “Droopy Ear Sock Bunny”. This bunny can sits on its own, it is great as toy for kid and as well as for home decoration. Hope you like it and made some for your loved ones.

Again, it is a single sock sewing, perfect if you have some don’t-know-what-to-do stray socks laying around that are still “new”. Or, you can make twins bunny with a new pair of socks.

Since there have been quite some sock tutorials here, including the sock monkey, sock kitty and sock skeleton, I will have this tutorial a little simplified on the step photos. If you want to view more photos on the detail, perhaps a visit to the previous sock bunny tutorial will be a good start for a beginner or if you haven’t been there before.

Happy Sewing!

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How to sew sock bunny

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Unlike many sock toys that needs a pair of socks to sew, each sock bunny only needs one (1) sock to make. With a pair of socks you can make a pair of bunny couples. If you have a rather new sock that lost it’s partner, you can make a bunny with it instead of throwing it away. You may use different sizes of socks to come out with various sizes of sock bunnies.

The sock bunny can’t sit on its own, I pinned them down for photography purpose. You may add beads or rice to make the bottom heavier so that it can sit properly. Add the rice or beads in a small sachet and insert it into the body before closing up the opening to avoid the small particles from slipping out from the sock. Otherwise, you may add a string on it’s head to hang it up. Pinch the head and lift it up to find a balancing point to add string to hang.

[If you are interested on the felted carrot shown at the background, here is the tutorial to make it.]

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How to sew Sock Monkey

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I have seen a lot of sock monkey photos hanging around friends’ photo albums in many photo sharing websites, so envy. These sock monkeys are so cute and so adorable that I would want to hug one, I bet my kids would love to have them to accompany too when mommy is busy with works. Therefore, I went out to shop for some socks thinking that may be 4 to 5 pairs should be enough, I ended up with 20 pairs of colorful socks, simply can’t resist for not buying . I made a few prototypes and showed them to my parents, siblings and their families during a dinner. Now, everyone wants one from me…. ha ha ha… Seeing their positive responses, I am certain that you will want one too …. After a few researches and findings, here is my version of sock monkey. Though it may looks a bit different from the popular vintage sock monkey of Red-Heel that comes with a red lip but it is surely as lovely.

With different sizes of socks, I made the sock monkey out of a family, from baby, toddlers, teens to adult. 3rd picture in the above album shows the family photo of the sock monkey, from daddy, mommy, sister, brother, triplet toddlers, and a baby. Not forgetting a brown sock monkey, the photographer who took this family photo that can do yoga. The sister (in purple stripes) who has magnets on her limbs are good in exercise and can be hung on any metal surface. Click next on the above photo album to see them all.

The siblings are indeed loving each other, not only they are huggy to human, but they also hug each other, like this one.

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Happy Elephant Family - Toy Sewing Pattern

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As you may have noticed, I love to sew toys for my kids. Seeing them hugging the toys lovingly is all I want as a return of my late night crafting. This time is a set of 4 elephant family members, I called them “The Happy Elephant Family”, which resemble the size of my family, Dad-Mom-Daughter-Son. Looking at the wild life photo of the elephant colony inspired me to come out with this pattern. I was brought up in the accustomed way like many of you, Father is always the leader and Mother is always the care provider. I hope my kids will follow us until they are big enough to set up their own family and this is how the family branches out.

Today is also my dad’s 70th birthday. My dad is a traditional Chinese man, he is the man who spends his whole life working so hard to bring 4 of us up in the best way he can afford to do. The man who spends all his hard earn money building a good family foundation, but also the one who forgotten to plan for himself, his retirement and his medical bill. The man still working all his best for us including repairing our house plumbing, electrical appliances, build us furniture & fish pond, plant & harvest our favorite fruits. Happy Birthday Daddy! You are always our hero and we will always love you.

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How to knit pom-pom scarf [with video]

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This pink pom-pom scarf is quick to knit by using the Sirdar’s baby snowball yarn I bought recently. It can be done in an hour or within 2 hours. The straight yarn between the pom-pom is shorter than the previous yarn, so this time I am going to make only 1 stitch in between pom-pom (instead of 2 for the previous pattern). This scarf is intended for my daughter, so I made it to have 2 bigger pom-pom dangling at both of it’s V-shaped ends.

In this knitting pattern, I added 2 types of knitting stitches (as shown below). If they are new to you, don’t worry, the video tutorial shown in detail how to make these 2 stitches too.

1. Kbf – Knit in front and back of stitch. This is an increment stitch where after you knit the 1st stitch, make another stitch at the back loop before take out from the left needle.
2. Ktbl – Knit through back loop. This is to make a normal knit stitch “twisted”.

The video has caption on it with a relaxing background music. You can leave the speaker off if you prefer to watch the video quietly. Sit back and enjoy this 12 minutes knitting tutorial video to make a pom-pom scarf, including how to join the yarn in between. Try one for this cold winter.

There is a written pattern below, just in case you want to print it out to keep.

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Remold Oil Pastel into Colorful Star

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As I cut and fill the pastels into the mold, it creates lots of waste debris on my table, very small and can hardly pick up by hand. So, I collect them and pour into one of the molds. Surprisingly, it turns into a star dust with all the colors I have used. One glide at the tip will give stripes of colors, my daughter shouted out: “Mommy, it is like a rainbow! So beautiful!”

Kids will be kids, they just like to fight over the same thing. When I remold the star pastel, I kept in mind to make sure that 2 stars must be identical in color and shape. Even with all my hard-work to try to duplicate the twin-star pastel, they still fight, sigh….. “Mom, I want that piece she is using, it has more red in it”, “Mom, not fair, my star is smaller…”, “Mom, sister used my star…”, “Mom…..” …… What can I say? Just love my kids the way they are… even sometimes they really made me steaming mad with all the mess and fights around. If you have kids like mine, welcome to my MOTHERHOOD….

Get the tutorial on how to make the Colorful Star Pastel after this:

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Sew Halloween Pumpkin Basket

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To kick-off a series of Halloween crafts and decorations, the first Halloween project of 2011 is this fabric pumpkin trick -or- treating basket. I hope you like it and make it for this year’s Halloween, be it for your kids to bring it out for the trick -or- treating or as part of a decoration in your Halloween corner. By the way, this basket is washable and can be reused for many years of Halloweens.

Since months ago, I have been squeezing a lot of brain juice for ideas to make this pumpkin basket. My mind goes through lots of designs and methods after researching and searching for inspirations. Finally, I settled with this method, the simplest among.

You can always convert this pumpkin basket into Jack-O-Lantern Basket by placing the black facial patches on the basket.

Happy Sewing!!!

Fabric Halloween Pumpkin Basket
Make: 1

Materials:
1. Orange fabric – 33″ x 14″, 6″ diameter circle
2. Lining fabric – 17″ x 6″, 6″ diameter circle
3. Fusible Woven Interfacing [heavy weight, as sturdy as a card stock] – 16″ x 5″, 5″ diameter circle (2 pcs if you want a sturdier base)
4. Woven handle – 20″
5. Twine or linen yarn – 80″
6. Polyester fill
7. Leaves and spiders for decoration

Tools:
1. Sewing machine with normal presser foot
2. Sewing needle and pins
3. Pencil & marker
4. Tapestry needle (sharp with eye enough to let twine to go through)
5. Iron

Seam Allowance:
1/2″

Finished Dimension (without handle):
9″ (W) x 7″ (H) x 9″ (D)

Cut materials to the correct sizes as indicated in the above list.
Mark 1/2″ seam allowance on the wrong side of the orange and lining fabrics.

Iron and bond the woven interfacing to lining (1 layer) and orange circle (2 layers). Set orange circle aside for later step.
Sew to join the short side of the lining and orange fabric respectively.
Leave a 3″ opening on the seam of orange fabric for stuffing poly-fill in the later step.

Mark 2″ intervals on the top and bottom seams of the lining, 8 markings per seam.
Mark 4″ intervals on the top and bottom seams of the orange fabric, also 8 markings per seam.
Attach handle on the lining as shown 1″ into the seam.

Sew 2 lines of longest stitch at 1/4″ away from the seam line on the orange fabric on both top and bottom seams.
Pull 2 threads either from the wrong side or the right side of the fabric to make gathers to shrink the marking from 4″ to 2″ respectively.
Pin the orange fabric to the lining with right sides facing each other. Align the 2″ gathers markings to the 2″ lining markings on the seams.
Sew to join. Remove gathering stitches.

Turn the basket right side out. Bring the seams allowance to the lining side.
Top stitch at 1/4″ on the lining and seam allowance only.

Cut twine or linen yarn to 8 pcs. of 10″ length.
Make a big knot at one end.
Sew the twine from the wrong side to the right side (from the 2″ markings at seam) with a sharp tapestry needle.

Repeat the gathers and sewing to join the bottom of the orange fabric to the lining with wrong side facing each other.
Remove the gathering stitches.

Pin and sew to attach the lining base to the basket.
If you find machine sew is difficult to handle on this part, you can always hand stitch it by using back-stitch.

Fill the lining and orange fabric gap with poly-fill from the 3″ opening, enough to inflate the basket.

Tie the twines down to the bottom seam to create a pumpkin look. Knot the twines and hide inside the basket base.

Make long stitch at the seam allowance of the orange circle. Pull and gather the seam allowance into the circle.

Slip stitch the orange base onto the pumpkin basket.

Massage each cell of the pumpkin to manipulate the poly-fill so that the cells look equal in size and mimic the shape of the pumpkin.
Adjust the fabric so it gathers more on the top and bottom.

This complete the basic pumpkin basket. Decorate further with leaves and spiders to make it into Halloween style.
Let the kid to bring out for Trick -or- Treating, or, fill it up with candies and wait for the kids to come.
Happy Halloween.

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Zip It Up Pencil Case

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Recently, I received an overwhelming and fantastic responses came all over the world to visit the tutorial of the Zip-Itself Tetrahedron Coin Purse, the same concept of this zip-it-up pencil case. Among the feedback and comments, some of you found it difficult to understand at some point, but I am glad that after putting you hands on it, you’ve made yourself some successful coin purses. As usual, practice makes perfect! Grandma G even tried it on with her sewing machine with a wider ribbon that her daughter Jessica of How About Orange designed. Jessica also shared the post with her readers. I was so happy that you all like the coin purse so much. As an appreciation to all your visits and feedback, I developed another tutorial to the same concept. This time both boys and girls can use this zip-it-up pencil case (just have to be fair to the boys too, right?).

I hope you like this Zip-It-Up Pencil Case as much as the coin purse. Please find the tutorial after this.

Finished Dimension: approx. 4″ x 8″ x 1 1/2″

Materials:
1. Zipper (nylon) – 80″
2. Ribbon (7/8″)- 80″ (Note: you can use grosgrain, woven, satin ribbons, or other alternative materials like lace, fabric strip, soft twill tape etc.)
3. Ribbon – short length for the purse loop.
4. Lining fabric strip (1 1/2″) – 80″ (optional)

Tools:
1. Sewing needles.
2. Matching threads
3. Pins
4. Marker
5. Warm iron (optional, use only with lining)

Get ready the materials and tools as per quantities stated above.
You can get the long nylon zipper from craft shop that cut into your requested length, and don’t forget to add a zipper pull.
Sew a few stitches to make a bottom-stop about 1″ from the end of the zipper.
Tie 2 knots on both top zipper tapes to prevent the zipper-pull from accidentally glide out from the zipper.
Measure 4 3/4″ from zipper’s bottom-stop. Mark, this is the START point.
Pin and backstitch the ribbon to the zipper tape along line A, start at 3/4″ from the ribbon end and 1/32″ away from the teeth in order for the zipper pull to glide through.
I sewed with longer stitch on the wrong side but shorter loop stitch on the right side for the backstitch so that the thread is not obviously seen on the right side.
When you reach the bottom stop, bend the zipper tape down, smooth the corner by crossing of zipper ends, continue sewing your ribbon till you have done around 70″ from the start point.

Come back to the start point. Arch the tape at the marking where the marking should be at the center of the ribbon’s width, pin the ribbon to the tape along line B.
Sew ribbon to the tape of the other side of the zipper.
Fold the ribbon’s end in and slip stitch the ribbon to the tape by following the curve.
A nice smooth curvature determine the beauty of the pencil case.
Continue back stitching the ribbon to the zipper tape until you have done 65″ from the start point.
There will be a different of 5″ of stitching between line A & B.
Zip-up the zipper and the pencil case shape is formed through a upward spiral closure.
Measure your pencil case from the bottom stop, it should be around slightly over 8″ and your zipper goes 7 rounds of zipping.
Press the top edge of the pencil case to find the top corners of a rectangular shape.
Mark both points on line A & B.
The point above the the bottom-stop is the end point, whilst, the point above the start point is the pencil case top-stop with a ribbon loop (please refer the last step-by-step photo for clearer picture).

Unzip the pencil case a little. Arch the line A zipper tape at the marking, the zipper ends should meet and intersect at the other marking on line B.
Place a ribbon loop on the intersection point of the zipper, pin & sew to join.
Trim off the extra zipper, crossed them and make a few stitches to stabilized the position.
Trim off the extra length of the ribbon and fold the raw edge of the ribbon, just like the start point, slip stitch to the tape.
Whip stitch the zipper edges at the back of the pencil case to complete it.
You may add a lining at the back of the pencil case. The lining will add some stability and aesthetic look to the workmanship of the pencil case.
Iron the lining strip by folding in both edges to form a 7/8″ double-fold tape.
Slip-stitch along the backstitch line to cover the stitches done for the ribbon. When you reach the curve of the start and end points, trim the ends to follow the curvature, fold in and slip stitch like you did the ribbon.

Zip it all the way up and you will get a pencil case.
Or, zip it all the way down to return it to a ribbon with edges full of zipper teeth.