Superhero Bean Bags

I was invited to a first birthday party for a sweet little boy, Baby Jack! His parents, a few friends and I recently had a Super Hero Night where we all wore our Super Hero shirts to dinner and bowling.

Super Hero Night

I used this night as the inspiration when deciding what to make for Baby Jack. I came across these while searching for baby boy gifts and knew I had to make something along these lines. She made them as hand warmers and I wanted mine to be bean bag like and durable enough for a toddler.

Superhero Hand Warmers from Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!

I cut all the pieces out all the pieces using a mixed nuts can for the circles and free-cut most of the designs. I did use images of the Superman logo and Batman that I printed off the internet and sized down. I used my machine to sew a web of black thread on the background of Spiderman's face.

I hand sewed all the embellishments on using a small blanket stitch around the edges. This was the most time consuming aspect of this project.

One the tops were all hand sewn, I sewed the front and back together, right sides together and turned them out and they were ready to be filled.

Since these were for a little guy, I opted to put my filler inside a small segment of panty hoses (I used lentils since I had them in my pantry!). Putting the filler in the nylon will help prevent spillage and makes it SO much easier to sew the opening up.

Finally, I sewed up the opening and gifted them on Jack.

The finished bean bags

They were a hit! He loved them,

Waterproof iPad Case

My favorite purchase of the summer was my iPad with pink smart cover. I use it daily to keep my schedule, record grades, and even play a few games. Once the school year started, I realized that putting it directly in my work bag wasn't the best idea and I ran the risk of it getting soaked if it was pouring on my bike ride to work. A waterproof case was in order, but living on an island in the middle of nowhere leaves few options for sewing materials.

I had some ugly blue oil cloth, but wasn't thrilled about the idea of carrying a case made from it around every day. I went through my stash and found a great piece of decorate weight fabric that I bought 2 years ago in Tokyo and knew that I would be perfect. I thought about ironing with a waterproofing layer, but remembered I had saved the plastic zippered pouches my new pillows came in. I just started cutting, sewing and ended up quilting the decorate weight fabric then covered it with the cut up clear plastic from the zippered pouches. I didn't really have a plan in mind, but it all came together. The back isn't the prettiest thing, but I learned a couple things to avoid that in the future. Also for the closure, I thought about velcro, but attaching it to the plastic was proving to be a challenge, so I used a new no-slip head band that I cut down to size and sewed on. I love my iPad case because it is not only functional, but I love the look of the fabric that I used.

Week 22 (the encore): Ripped at the Seams (Aug 29 - Sept 4)

This week was a lot of justing getting back into the swing of school. It was the first full week back (last week was only 3 days with students) and it exhausted me!! I have spent endless amounts of time planning meaningful, useful computer lessons and I keep hoping that my students will find them exciting and useful. This is life at its current state, but has nothing to due with my new expereince for the week.

One night this week a friend showed up with stitches that he was suppose to go to the hospital to get out, but he forgot. He asked if anyone could remove them and I willingly volunteered. He had about 8 stitchs on his calf and using a pocketknife and tweezers carefully cut the knots of the end and unthreaded it. I was quite impressed by how easy it was and in the future would consider removing my own stitches if I ever need them. The procedure was pretty minor, other than when the patient screamed(jokingly) as I pulled up the first knot to cut it. I think I had a look of terror on my face and so he didn't do that again, although if he had I might have stabbed him and given him reason for a few more stitches.

Week 8: A Flirty Skirt (May 30-June 5)

A few weeks back I saw an adorable tutorial for a reversible wrap around skirt (wish I remembered where...). I read through it quickly and thought, "I can totally do that".

Enter a 3 day weekend...I spent a coupld days laying in the sun and relaxing on the beach, but Monday afternoon I was a little peeved over a personal situation and my neighbor and I thought it would be brilliant to get the party started inside. So between the Malibu and Monsters I was mixing up for us, I managed to sew a reversible wrap around skirt in some beautiful fabric I picked up last year in Tokyo. (pics to come soon) In retrospect I should have read the directions for sizing; mine ended up a little too big and despite sizing it down 2 times, the end result is still too big! Since I am in the midst of losing some weight, I figure I will wait until I get back from summer to resize it to a better fit. It turned out very dressy and I am excited to find a white lace tanktop to wear with it this fall.

Week 3: Repair a sailboat sail or two (April 25-May 1)

I was told that all I needed to do was be able to sew a straight line, HA!! A few weeks ago a friend (T) was mentioning that he needed a sewing machine to fix a sail and I said I had one. Well, earlier this week I got an email asking if I could help him do some repairs. I made it VERY clear that I had never and was not expereinced in the repair of sails and couldn't guarantee my work. The first sail was pretty thick and T had already patched it, I just needed to sew around the edges and make sure it was all secured down. Definitely a workout for my sewing machine, I may need to reward it with a few simple layers of fabric this weekend!! I was very UNIMPRESSED with my work on the first sail, it was probably some of the ugliest sewing I have ever done!! T said that it would work just fine and used a flame to seal some of the lose edges. The second sail went MUCH better; the fabric was a little thinner and other than having to rethread every few minutes because of the nature of the thick waxed thread, it was almost enjoyable. It looked much better, in fact someone who had stopped by (and is an avid sailor) said that he had to do a double take to figure out where the patch was becuase it match the rest of the sail so well. My big fear is that it will rip while T is out on a sail. I hope that my repairs hold up and put off the need to drop $3000+ on a new set of sails for a while. I wouldn't want to make sail repair and career, but it wasn't too bad, in fact I would even be willing to do it again sometime in the future.

Would I have done this out of the kindness of my heard, MOST DEFINITELY, but it was great that T was willing to trade some services. While I worked on his sail he worked on my bike. He put on a new chain and cut 6 inches off the fender where it was rubbing. My bike is SO happy now!! It is Saturday and I am definitely glad that in about 7 hours the weekend will finally be here!! BEACH here I come!