Leo the Lion is my first amigurumi from the book Amigurumi World since I figured out that I was crocheting them inside out. As you see, his head and his bottom are much rounder than my previous animals for this book. I also feel that he was easier to crochet than the elephant or monkey from this book. This is probably due to crocheting him correctly, not inside out, or just the fact that I have made 4 of the patterns in this book, as well as the ones from my other book. I am getting the hang of crocheting amigurumi now. Either way I really enjoyed crocheting Leo and I think he turned out really cute.

The part that I really dislike still is the sewing together of these guys. I love to crochet all their parts but just hate when it is time to put them together. I feel I did better on Leo though than on my other amigurumi’s. First I studied the pictures in the book very carefully, and I saw that the felt parts where not being stitched on with a back stitch as I had tried to do previously. Second, by the end of crocheting, I am excited to put my amigurumi together so I think I rush the sewing together part. So, following the suggestion in the book and the pictures closely and slowing down and taking all the time I needed, I am much more pleased with Leo’s face than his friends. His face is probably better looking just due to the fact that his head is not pointy, or maybe just practice.

His mane was a sources of contention for me though. I crochet really tight. I followed that pattern exactly to make his mane but it fell short around his head due to how tight I crocheted it. I stretched it around to fit, but if I make another lion, I will break the pattern down and see how many stitches to add for more dumps on his mane. I already tried to crochet it looser, but still did not get a nice fitting mane.

So, Leo needs a good home. If anyone would like to provide him with one, please let me know.

On our last trip to see my parents, my mom produced a box from her fabric stash labeled “think sleepers”. It was filled with the scraps from many knit projects she had done over the years. She offered me whatever I wanted from the box and I pretty much took the whole box. (I didn’t take any pieces that did not have enough yardage for a sleeper or was not  really baby in color or print.) I had a great time going through the box and brought home some great pieces. Thanks, Mom.

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One of the pieces in the box was this blue chest stripe knit. There was not enough fabric for a sleeper with matching stripes so I decided to turn the fabric as I cut out the sleepers and not worry about the stripes. By doing this I had enough fabric for 2 sleepers. I think they turned out adorable. I was able to use my smaller sleeper pattern and I had more fun sewing them together by not worrying about the stripes. The next baby shower I have been invited to is for a little girl so the embroidery designs I picked were feminine. I hope her mom likes them.

One of these sleepers also gave me the chance to use my clear fingernail polish I had mentioned in my flag repair post. One of the white zippers I had had a damaged end. It was still long enough to use after cutting of the damaged end. So, to seal the ends of the zipper and keep them from fraying, I applied just a touch of clear finger nail polish to the ends and it worked out great.

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I have been to baby showers for little girls and all the gifts are usually pink. So, I try not to make all the sleepers I give, pink or totally girly, but the 3rd sleeper I made is all girl. I have several yards of this rainbow fabric and it has been living in my stash for many years. The reason it has never been sewn up before is how thin it is. I think this little girl will fit in this sleeper in the middle of summer and the thinner fabric should work just fine when it is warmer outside.

Between the bib’s, sleepers, and the christmas gift I embroidered I would say it was a very productive embroidery day!

When I pulled out my box that contained the tip towels for baby bibs, I found that I had less tip towels remaining than I remembered. As I dug though the box to get an inventory of what I really had left, I found at the bottom of the box some towels I had purchased for another project that never happened. They are bigger than tip towels, about the size a large hand towel. As I laid a tip towel on them to see just how big they really were in comparison, I found that width wise they were exactly two tip towels wide. So, by cutting the towel in half, I would have two tip towels to use as bibs. This would have been perfect except for the decorative stripe on the ends of the towels that would then be on the left or right of the bibs once they were cut to size. I decided to give it a try anyway and see how the bibs turned out.

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I measured the towel into fourths and luckily on the 1/4 and 3/4 mark I had room to put a 4 X 4 embroidery design before the stripe got in the way. After embroidering the two designs, I cut the towel at the 1/2 mark, serged the edges, turned and stitched down, finishing the raw edge. I then measured for the neck. To center the neck, I had to cut into the stripe. I thought about moving the neck off center so the stripe was not involved, but I did not like that look. It was too far off. I decided to go ahead at cut into the stripe for the neck and just see how it turned out, and as you can see, it turned out just fine. In fact, I think that the bibs turned out pretty well on the half towel. The back side is not nearly as pretty as the bibs made with the tip towels, but the front look is all I really care about and I believe the functionality will still be the same, if not better. These are pretty nice towels and are thicker than most I use. Some of the tip towels I have used previously have been pretty thin.

Finding ribbing I liked with the green towel was a chore. I did not have any matching green so I tried to match with the embroidery designs colors. Snoopy was easy of course. I chose the red ribbing, but white would have worked as well. The dinosaur design was a little more difficult to pick a color. I  had no brown ribbing so I dug deep into the back of the closet for find this manufactured ribbing I had bought many years ago and never used. It matched well, but it definitely made the bib more masculine.

The 3rd bib I made is from a tip towel from the box. I wanted to use the cream towel with this design. I wanted to put brown ribbing on the neck, but as I already mentioned, I had no brown ribbing. (I know what I will be buying on my next trip to a real fabric store since Wal-mart does not have ribbing.) I tried pink ribbing but just did not like the look, so I settled for the cream ribbing, even though it is not my favorite. I think the bib turned out cute anyway.

I am excited now to make more bibs and will not hesitate so much in making them do to my lack of tip towels since I think the hand towels cut in half work out just fine.

That is the number of stitches that my embroidery machine stitched on embroidery day. I completed the embroidery design on my new shirt and on 3 baby sleepers. Then I also stitched 3 designs on 3 towels for  baby bibs. The final design I embroidered was a design on a blank for a Christmas present for someone.

All in all I had a great day, and it was lots of fun. Although I did not get the 4th or 5th sleeper done that I had the fabric laid out for, I do consider the day a success. I will post more details on the designs as I post the finished items, except for the Christmas present, but with only 48 days left until Christmas you won’t  have to wait too long to see a picture of it as well.

Right now, I am excited to get sewing and get these current projects finished so I can start more. Stay tuned!

We attended a craft fair last week and I purchased a new pin cushion. Of course, what caught my eye was the Coca-Cola fabric, but it was also large, constructed well, and had a nice price. My problem is I have used the same pin cushion for almost 17 years. My neighbor lady gave it to me when I started to sew. It is one that she crocheted. Over the years, the yarn has become fuzzy as many a pin has been pulled from it and then returned to it, but it is still quite functional. As I removed the pins from the old pin cushion, I became very sentimental. Do I really want to give up my tried and true pin cushion? What did I need a new one for? Why did I even buy the new one when my old one is doing just fine?

I removed all the pins from the old pin cushion and poked them into the new cushion. I then tossed the old pin cushion into the good will box, but then promptly turned around and removed it. I decided I would not part with it yet just in case I disliked the new pin cushion and needed to return to using the old one. So, will someone remind me in a month or so to get rid of the old pin cushion so it does not just live in the back of the closet with all the other sentimental treasures. Thanks.

In trying to decided what to sew next, I found a shirt I had cut out for myself many months ago, but had just never finished, tucked deeply in the depths of the closet. The shirt had become a UFO that I was going to finish someday, so I decided that it was someday and pulled it out of the closet. I finished the collar and side seams and decided to add some embroidery to it as well. After deciding on a design and putting it on the stick, it was time to pull out the hoops, thread and stabilizer, but I was out of time. I knew I did not have enough time to complete the embroidery on the shirt. So, I have decided to have an “embroidery day” on my next day off.

With that decision made, I hung the shirt in the closet and started some baby sleepers. I almost have 3 sleepers ready to embroidery. I have picked out some fabric for a 4th and 5th sleeper and I know what design I want on it, but I don’t know if I will have it ready for “embroidery day”. I also want to dig some towels out of the stash for bibs and embroider them on “embroidery day”. I can think of several other things I would like to embroider on “embroidery day”, but I do not want to schedule more than I can complete in that day. I am very excited for “embroidery day” and I am already planning the dates for “sewing days”. If I get all the embroidery done I want to do, I will need a couple of full “sewing days” to complete the shirt, sleepers and bibs.

Does anyone else have this problem? I love to sew and I have many projects in mind to do next and I would just love to spend 6 months stitching away with no distractions. But, it seem that every time I finish a project, I get a mental block and I can’t figure out what to sew next. Should I do this or that? Should I create something new I’ve never done before or should I do something off of my to do list? I just finished my husbands new shirt and then wandered around my sewing room wondering what to do next. It frustrates me greatly when this happens. I am wasting precious time that could be used sewing or even crocheting. I know, I know. Most of you are saying “Wow! I only WISH I had that problem.” Still it bothers me that I can’t be decisive enough to just go from one project to the next.

I have decided that reason this happens is because I have so many ideas and I am over thinking the possibilities. I tend to over think things a lot because it is who I am. Because my sewing time is so limited, when I finish a project, I say to myself, “Ok, I will make me a shirt next, or would it be better to make the niece the new dress pattern you bought, or do I want to finish that sock monster that has been hiding in the closet for the last few months. Oh, don’t forget about the baby shower coming up at work, you had better get some more sleepers made.” By then I am so overwhelmed with things to do and I can’t decided how to prioritize what should come next. I want to do all the projects, NOW, but which would be the best one to do next. Argh! I have tried to make a list to help prioritize things but that does not seem to be much help. I have also tried to tell myself, “Just do it. They are all projects you want to do so it really does not matter what you do first.” But, that is not helping. So, my struggle continues as I try to figure out what to make next. It’s a good problem to have I think.

It was time to make the husband a new shirt and here it is. It is made from some of the  $1 a yard fabric bought on the last trip to M&L fabric so I did not have to dig too deep into the stash. The fabric cut and stitched so gracefully that I was wishing I would have bought many more yards of it. My husband looked at the fabric color and texture and then picked out his embroidery design for it. It was a fun design to stitch. It is shadowed so that the penguin is supposed to look more realistic. Although the design called for the lettering to be the same color as one of the oranges in the beak, the next time I do this design, I will pick a different color for the lettering, changing threads in the middle of the stitching to give it more contrast. I am still pleased with the end results and I think you can read the words fine.

Don’t look at the collar too closely though. As with all my sewing, my patience must be tested and this time it was on the tab front. I don’t know if I just stitched unevenly or if I cut unevenly, but the bottom of the tab will not lay straight. I unpicked and re-stitched this several times, but it just would not work. I finally notice that my redoing was causing more damage than I was getting results, so I finally decided it would have to do. On the hanger it does not look so great, but when my husband is wearing it, you really don’t notice so I guess that is where it counts.

And a conclusion has been made. In the opinion of this researcher, the Susan Bates crochet hook is a better hook than the Boye or Glover hooks.

Although all three hooks are extremely functional, the glide factor became the determining factor. The Susan Bates hook seemed to glide through the loops of the crocheting better than the other two for a smoother and quicker stitch.

Because of the pencil holders that I had added to the other two hooks, the wider handle of the Glover hook did not add anything to its functionality, and it failed the glide test quicker than the Boye hook. Without the pencil holders that I added to the other hooks, I probably would have chosen the Glover hook because of its wider handle even though it failed the glide test.

What I found was that with all three hooks sitting on my desk, I always reached for the Susan Bates hook over the other two. I will not get rid of my other hooks, but I definitely will favor the Susan Bates brand when I buy new ones in the future. I will have to add the pencil holders to the hooks I buy though, to give them a wider gripping surface so it aggravates my hands less as I stitch.

For many years we have had a flag flying in our front yard. My husband being a veteran is a little bit anal about his flags and since ours is lighted it stays up 24/7/365. Occasionally when the weather is bad, the flags fabric tears or the seams on the stripes break and my husband pulls the flag down for some minor mending. At first I was a little uncomfortable mending the flag. I somehow felt like I was being disrespectful to it. After some thought though, I decided it was fine, if not even respectful, to mend the flag. My choices were to leave the flag tattered, which is unacceptable, buy a new flag, but at $40 a piece that is not feasible, not have a flag at all, which didn’t settle well either, or mend the flag. So for years, I have mended our flags until they are too tattered to mend at which time my husband burns them. After the last low front moved through and the winds calmed down, I found myself needing to mend the flag again.

This time was not as easy a mend as most times. Several of the stripes had come unstitched and the fabric frayed on the edges of them. I almost declared the flag too damaged to mend, but I thought I would give it a try. I had to use a little bias tape to replace some of the frayed fabric, but I think all in all it mended well.

For years I have used fray check on the flag to try and preserve the edges, but the fray check did not seem to make very much difference. After using several bottles of fray check, I asked the best seamstress I know, for something other than fray check to seal the edges of the flag. My mom’s answer was clear fingernail polish. Brilliant. So, off to the dollar store I went to buy the cheapest clear nail polish I could. I must say, it works great. It sealed the seams and stopped the little frays spots from continuing, and holds up great it the weather. I can think of several places to use nail polish instead of fray check. I am very generous with the polish when I apply it, so my only problem with using the polish is that my sewing room is always a little smelly after I do it and I get a little dizzy from the fumes.

So if you ever have something that you need to seal the seams on and you want something that will hold up better than fray check give the clear fingernail polish a try. It worked for me!