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Patching Clothes Geek Style

What do you know… the Larva put holes in another pair of pants. Well, one hole, but I preemptively patched both knees because I know it’s just going to be a matter of time before the other knee ends up with a hole too.

I decided she needed something geek themed, and went with Super Mario Bros patches. (And yes, if these pants look familiar, it’s because they’re the same pants I patched in my last post. The Larva has 2 pairs of these pants, and now they all have patched knees.)

Super Mario Bros Knee Patches

These patches were really fun to do and they weren’t that much more work than a simple heart patch. I’ll post a tutorial next time on how I made these.

Tutorial on Patching Clothes

finished clothing patch

Patching clothes was never something I had to do before, but kids are really hard on their clothes! In the last year, I’ve patched quite a few knee and elbow holes.

At first I bought those patches that are sold at Joann, but then I realized I have lots of fabric scraps that would make adorable patches so why not make my own? It’s super easy and fast. I can patch a knee hole in about 15 minutes. Of course right now the knee holes are very small as the Larva is only 2 years old…

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Using Up Scrap Fabrics – Mission Report #2

Now that my baby quilt is done, I’ve been sewing bags again. The two I just finished  are barrel pouches that are supposed to be pencil pouches, but could really be used for anything. I made 2 of them one right after the other and I’m afraid my first attempt (the green one) was definitely a trial run. I’ve been pawning off my trial runs on my friends so I hope Mi doesn’t mind that hers didn’t come out as nice as my second attempt. ^^;

I love how the the quilted diamond pattern came out, and I’m actually a bit sad that I decided to use pink for my second run instead of a color I like so that I could keep it. (I’m really not a fan of pink so that one is going on my Etsy shop.) This was the last of most of my Windsor Lane Bunny Hill quilting fabric so I guess I will have to find some other fabrics to make one for myself.

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Baby Quilt for the Grub

I finally finished the Grub’s quilt! This one took a while because of all the scallop trim and because I decided I was going to attempt to step up my quilting skills. The scallop trim went fine. The attempt to do fancier quilting… the jury is still out on whether I accomplished that. =D

I didn’t use a pattern for this quilt so I did a lot of planning and math at the beginning, but apparently I can’t do math (please ignore my college degree that says I graduated in engineering), and my blocks didn’t quite come out the size I expected. It wasn’t a big deal as the quilt was very basic and I just worked around my faulty math, but I’m thinking I might just stick to using patterns in the future.

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Achievement Unlocked: Etsy shop!

Opening an Etsy shop is one of those things I have noodled on and off for years and never made a decision about. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to sell and if I wanted to deal with running a shop. I ran a doll clothing and jewelry shop with Judy for a bit when we were really into ball-jointed-dolls, and I’m not sure I had a lot of fun doing it. After some thinking though, I realized that the problem with our previous shop was that I felt like I had to sell stuff so I spent a lot of time thinking about what would sell and making stuff that would cater to the market. And what people wanted to buy wasn’t  necessarily stuff that I enjoyed making.

What I would much rather be doing is making stuff that I want to make and if it sells, that’s just an added bonus.

“It’s the making not the having.”

Pretty by Hand, a blog I just started following and love, posted that last week and it’s so true. I love making bags but I need more bags like I need a hole in my head. (Marcus has this patented  “ANOTHER ONE”? look when I tell him I’m making another bag. LOL) So that’s what my Etsy shop will be: a place for me to offload items I don’t have room for… which is pretty much anything craftsy I make these days. I barely have room for my costumes as it is.

So, I present to you the Confused Kitty Shop! Complete with my one lone product! (Isn’t the banner adorable? Lorelai made it for me.)

And here are some photos of the bag I’ve been working on for the last 2 weeks that I listed for sale.

This was supposed to be a fun fast bag using up scraps from my teacup quilt, but it ended up taking me way longer than I originally thought. I was making up the pattern as I went and some things didn’t quite turn out how I expected. Like I wasn’t able to flat fell the seams like I originally planned because of how thick the quilting batting made the bag, so I ended up using binding to finish the seams inside. The quilting step always takes longer than I think it will, and then I ended up doing more hand sewing than I originally planned because I didn’t like how the plain handles looked so I added the diamond appliques.

I feel like hand sewing is one of my more serious weaknesses, but I’m working on it! I have a bunch of applique projects in my future so I’m about to get lots of practice.