Merry KISSmas

My husband has always disliked posing for the cheesy happy family Christmas cards. He has spent the past year trying to convince me that instead of doing one of those cheesy (traditional!) cards, that we do something funny instead. I think I delivered.

I poured over dozens of KISS album covers and marketing materials, making sure the design really captured the KISS style. I think I did alright!

I thought the hardest part would be getting the boys to wear the make-up, but it wasn't a problem at all. They thought it was "like Halloween all over again." And both of them really got into the persona of their rocker characters!

The feedback from our friends and family has been great too. They love the funny card. We might just have to do another one next year. Any ideas for what theme we should do?

Rock Tshirt Quilt

This post is almost a year late!

Last Christmas, as a surprise present for my husband, I took a bunch of his old concert t-shirts and made a quilt for him. I just realized that I never posted a picture of it!

These aren't nearly all of his concert tees, but these are some of the ones I knew he wouldn't divorce me over cutting up. :)

Front of the rock and roll quilt

Back of the rock and roll quilt

On Christmas morning

Oven Mitts Take 3

 I've had this pig oven mitt for forever. It has seen better days. So I decided to cut it apart and use it as a template for making a new dog oven mitt.

First, cut apart the old mitt on the seams.

Then I used the old mitt to applique together the top, bottom, and mouth of the new mitt.


Voila! A dog oven mitt. Complete with "I Woof You" instead of I love you message for Grandma.

Embroider name and year.

Oven Mitts take 2

My Mother-In-Law collects chickens. Because of this, my sons have sometimes called her "Grandma Chicken".

So I thought we'd honor that when making her Cheesy Christmas Present.

Cheesy Christmas Presents

Every Christmas I try to come up with new, cute, cheesy Christmas presents for the grandparents.

I've done personalized plates, personalized aprons, personalized watches, personalized bags...you name it. And now that my boy are 5, I'm running out of ideas. Oh no!

But, I have a few ideas left in me...because this year I came up with: Personalized Oven Mitts!

There are tons of tutorials on the web, but I just free-handed it.  This is how I did it:

1. Drew a mitt and traced my son's hand in the middle.

2. For each side of the mitt, you actually have to cut out at least 3 layers: the outside, the lining, and the insulation. I just used some left over 100% cotton quilt batting, so I cut two layers of that. (They sell actual oven mitt batting that is more heat resistant, but I decided two layers of the cotton stuff would be fine for our purposes.) 

 

3. Quilt the three layers together.

4. Add any embellishment (embroidery, applique, etc).

5. Bind the bottom of the glove. (I've seen the binding done two ways, like this, or at the end, after stitching the two sides together. I decided to try this way, because it looked easier.)

6. Once both sides are finished, lay both right sides together than stitch around.

 

7. Option, if you want to add a loop to hang it by, you need to add it right now. Remember, lay the loop part between the two right sides.

8. Pin around the edges. Then stitch around. And then cut the excess loop material.

 9. Turn inside out and Voila!

If you let them pick out the material and the design, they will be so proud of the gift they've made for her!

Up-cycled Tshirts

Did I already write about my new sewing machine on here?  I don't think so...

Santa (aka my mom and dad) was incredibly generous this year and gifted me a Brother Se-400 Embroidery and Sewing machine.  I died and went to heaven!  I'd been using a very old basic, basic Kenmore that a friend bought for $20 off ebay and ended up just giving to me because she never actually used it.  It did the basic stitches, but definitely nothing fancy.

My Bro-Fo (we're so tight, it has a nickname)...it embroiders (no more hand embroidering for me!), it has all kinds of cool attachments, it does free arm quilting (something I really needed), and, my personal favorite: it threads it's own needle!  For serious y'all!  I'm dangerously close to 33, and my non-20 something eyes have definitely been squinting more and more when trying to jab the limp thread into that little hole.

Oh, and did I mention that I'd probably used it 20 times before I even used the presser foot?  That's because it has an automatic feed (in three different speeds!).

Well, enough about my Bro-Fo, because Brother isn't paying me to tell you how much I love it.  (Uh-mm Brother...hint hint)

What I'm here to tell you about is that thanks to my new free arm quilting abilities, I've finally been able to complete a t-shirt quilt project I started almost 2 years ago!!

That's right ladies and gentleman, in July 2010, my sister handed me a bag full of motocross t-shirts that she and her family had been collecting over the years, and she asked me to turn them into a quilt.  "No rush" she said.  Uh, good thing.  Because while I'd made quilts before, I'd never made a big one (only baby/crib sized quilts) and had only used standard quilting fabric, not the stretchy jersey material t-shirts are made from.  I started doing research on t-shirt quilts and soon realized that trying to use a walking foot and feed feet with jersey would be disastrous!

During my research I saw lots and lots of examples of t-shirt quilts, but my favorite was a method used by a woman named Andrea Funk because instead of the quilts being blocks of t-shirts, it was more like a puzzle of random shapes and sizes.  They just looked, well cool.  In fact, that is the name of her business Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts International LLC.  For real.

I hopped on Amazon.com and found a copy of her book How to Make a Too Cool T-Shirt Quilt and I was in business.  When it came in the mail, I read it front to back.  Then I cut out all of my sister's t-shirts according to her instructions.  But then I froze with fear over attempting jersey on my Kenmore, so the cut up t-shirts sat and sat and sat until this Christmas when Santa brought me by Bro-Fo.

Now, just a few weeks later, I'm so excited to send my sister her finished t-shirt quilt!!  I think Andrea would be proud.

In fact, it came together so well, that I immediately pulled out my own secret stash of t-shirts I've been saving.  Some of these were cut pre-How to Make a Too Cool T-shirt Quilt, but I was able to make them work (as Tim Gunn would say) by adding strips of extra material here and there.  So far, I've just pieced together the top, I still have to baste it, quilt it, and bind it.  But, I think you can get an idea of how cool this one will turn out too.

My super cute helper, Thing 2.

P.S. Sometimes I forget just how far removed from college I am.  Then I see a t-shirt from Freshman year dated 1997 and I think my god, that t-shirt is 15 years old!!  Yikes!