Portable Rink Projects

When you spend hours upon hours at the hockey rink on a weekly basis, you need a portable project to work on. First it was the cross stitched ornaments. Then I got cold, so I started doing fleece blankets. These are pretty simple - 2 yards of 56-60" wide fleece for adults, 1.5 yards for kids. I wash the fleece, straighten the edges, and curve the corners using a dinner plate as a template. Then I serge the edges to make it look more finished. And then I use my rotary blade that makes perforations in the fabric - about 3/4" from the edge. I mark the corners (basically where I feel the curve starts and ends ) with stitch markers (you can just eyeball it, but I'm obsessive). And then I do a row of sc around the entire blanket, folding the hem over as I go and doing (2 sc in first hole, sc in next) between the stitch markers. My second row is straight sc. After that, it's whatever stitch pattern I want. 

This is my rink blanket. It's the two rows of sc, then a row of V-stitch, then a row of (3 dc, ch 1) in every V.

 

This is for my niece - a shell pattern. Two rows of sc as described, then one row of shell stitch with ch 1 between each dc of the shell, then one row of sc into each stitch around.

This is her blanket laid out on a queen sized bed.

A blanket for our sports room - I found this NHL Original Six fleece on clearance. This one got the V-stitch edging.

A housewarming gift for a friend. This one also got the shell stitch treatment.

 I'm up to 20+ blankets so far this hockey season! They're easy and so much fun to make. And I don't have to count or pay much attention, so perfect while watching a hockey game! A lot of them became Christmas gifts this year. Obviously I didn't take pictures of many - just kept churning them out.

It's Been Awhile.....

So I haven't been sewing for awhile, and it's been even longer since I blogged. Here is the first set of out-of-town Christmas gifts that I am sending out. 

 

The snowman afghan is what I've been doing a lot of lately - prep a piece of fleece, then crochet an edging on it. This works out well for portable projects at the hockey rink. The White Sox fleece pants were done much earlier in the year (and saved for Christmas!), and the pillowcases were just finished up today. At least I realized that I had only sat on that fabric for almost a year and not 2 years like I was thinking? 

Isn't the fabric cute? My friend is going to love these. I used the burrito method and french seams, so they're totally clean inside. I really should make pillowcases as gifts more often.

More blankets!

Since I was buying ridiculously cheap fleece as the backings for my sons' new Christmas blankets, I decided to finally get backings for two lengths of fleece that have been stashed for several years (at least three, probably longer....I'd have to check my records).  Both of these were purchased at HF.

I have always enjoyed the Mr Men/Little Miss books - they're hilarious!  I remember quite a few from my younger days - especially Mr Bump.  (I'm pretty sure that was the one most similar to me.)  So when I saw this hilarious fleece, I had to watch for a sale to buy it!  I briefly toyed with the idea of PJ pants or a lounge shirt out of it, but I realized my husband would never let me live it down.  Instead, it became a blanket!

And I've been a sucker for Veggie Tales ever since King George and the Ducky....so when I saw this Christmas fleece on the clearance table, well, I had to get it.  I love the tie-dyed green fleece I used to bind it, too.  That's the same fleece I used for Cooper's dinosaur costume.

These are snuggly warm - just in time for the polar vector that hit recently.  I was very happy to have them finished, and they used up quite a bit of yardage!

New blankets!

 As previously mentioned, my double-layer fleece blankets are popular, whether around this house or as gifts.  And sometimes both!  (As an aside, now that I look at previous posts, I see that I haven't made any new fleece blankets for my house since 3 years ago!  All of those are holding up very well and in heavy rotation, so that's a good thing.)

Thing 2 loves Angry Birds, so when I was walking through HF last month and spotted this fabric, I immediately thought of making him a blanket!  Of course, I'm also frugal, so I had to think on it for a few days and crunch the sale price before I went back to get it.  But in the end, it was under $7.50/yd, so who could pass that up?!?  This one is backed with a solid black (on a great sale at JAF - $2.99/yd) and then bound with the red fleece that I already had on hand, wound onto a "wheel."

And of course, if one gets a new blanket, the other will want a new one!  So I started looking for a good fleece print for Thing  1.  I really liked this Agent P fleece that I found, and I knew that he would, as well.  It is backed with a solid blue in the same shade as the background (also at that great JAF sale), and bound with black fleece that I already had prepared for binding.  I think it turned out great!

My boys were thrilled with their new blankets and immediately wanted to put them on their beds.  :)  And I have two more blankets that I want to make for general house use - the prints are both from long-time stash, though I did buy the backings at the big JAF sale.  Hopefully I'll be able to blog about them soon.

Halloween costumes and more!

Things 1&2 gave me no help on Halloween planning until literally a week before Halloween. Argh! And then, they totally wouldn't fall in with my "Thing 1/Thing 2" costume idea. Bummer! Instead, Thing 1 wanted to be a penguin....again....but this year he definitely needed a new size. And Thing 2 decided he would be Batman. Obviously, I already had the penguin costume (S3639). I checked my records, and since I had made size child XS the last time, I decided to make size M this time. But since the hood runs small (or my child's head runs big), I made that a size L. Since I've made the costume before, there were really no surprises here. Although, looking at the picture, I'm not sure that he'll be able to wear this again next year, should he still be in love with penguins....

For Thing 2, I found S3595. He is 4, but the size 3 seemed to run big enough (except that the shirt was quite tight - maybe his potbelly is bigger than I thought, or maybe the fleece wasn't stretchy enough). I made a few changes - I didn't like the applique on it, so I substituted the Batman applique from Make Them Yourself's Reversible Cape. Much better! I also changed the mask to be a full face mask - it made it easier for me to get the effect my DH liked. For the cape, I added two small tabs with heavy duty magnets to fasten the cape, but it didn't work too well. I think the cape was just too long and heavy for the magnets, despite being such a thin interlock. I'll change it out for snaps later.

I also used scraps from a previous blanket to make a cat mat. This is simply two layers of fleece with two layers of batting sandwiched between, then bound with black fleece. We'll see if this is as popular with the kitties as simply curling up on the blankets tends to be!

And in the spirit of getting stuff out of the sewing room and making room on the shelves to get all my fabric off the floor, I made another fleece blanket as a Christmas present. I found this Bugs Bunny fleece on a clearance table and thought it'd be perfect for a friend whose husband loves Looney Tunes. (The backing is black, just like the binding.) Since the fleece is bulky, I took the time to make the blanket now. It's long enough to cover a twin bed with a few inches to spare, and it's the full width of the fleece. Great for snuggling under! Now it's in the gift closet, waiting for a trip in that direction.

Next up: November birthday presents....

New fleece blankets!

Yes, I know that it's April. But these have been waiting for quite awhile to be finished. Besides, we've been leaving the windows open, and it's still chilly at night! Now the boys will have two fleece blankets each, which means that there's always one available. And they're good for snuggling up in front of the TV, too.
An insects (mostly spiders) fleece I found on clearance at JAF. I bought all that they had! It is backed and bound with the same red fleece.

A robots and aliens fleece I found on sale at HF. This one is also backed and bound with the same red fleece. These are definitely warm and snuggly, and they were easy to make.

Catching up....

So once again, I've finally finished a few things. I'm not exactly speedy thus far this year, but I am amazingly ahead on stash parity (keeping in mind that I start again at zero on Jan. 1st - so yes, I'm still way behind on what's on the shelves).


A new scrub hat for my favorite recent grad, who loves the Indianopolis Colts and was horribly disappointed in the Super Bowl. This should cheer her up a bit! I've had the fabric for over a year, so it was definitely time to sew it up!

A new shirt for DH! This is the first of four fabrics I purchased before Christmas. The idea was to get at least one done for Christmas, but, well....you can see how well that went. At any rate, he likes it and says I did a really good job. (Though I really should have ironed it before taking the pic!) I believe it's getting its maiden wearing on his trip to Hawaii this week...And I tried out the Pro-Weft fusible interfacing from Fashion Sewing Supply. I really liked it! We'll see what DH thinks after wearing the shirt....And at long last, DS#2's double-layer fleece blanket. This is almost embarrassing - I cut the fleece and zigzagged the main part together around Christmas, and it's been waiting this whole time for me to simply join the binding strips and bind the darn thing. He is thrilled, and now his brother wants a new blanket. :) Since it's cold these days (and really cold in our house at night!), they might both get a second double-layer fleece blanket. I have a spider fleece and a robot fleece. Just need to get backing and binding fleece and I'm good to go.

Blanket and a shirt

I finally used some of my precious Cat in the Hat fleece to make myself a new blanket! I've had this fleece for several years - probably 5 - and I haven't done anything with it. I made sure that there was enough left to still make myself a lounge shirt. But this is backed and bound with black fleece. It's two yards long - nice and toasty.
"The Shirt" is finally finished! Hooray! I used my new french curve to help me take out excess width through the rib cage and abdomen, tapering back out a little near the bottom. I also took two inches off the bottom of the shirt and another 3/4 inch off the sleeves. These changes were made on my pattern pieces, so now I'm ready to go on the next one once I get fabric. :) (This is KS 2935.)

Blankets!

Camping fleece - found this on the clearance rack at JAF somtime last year. I used orange fleece for the backing and bound it with black fleece.

Pirate fleece that I found in the remnant rack at JAF. It is backed with burgundy fleece and bound with black. This is a gift for a toddler.

John Deere fleece that I also found in the JAF remnant rack. The backing is black fleece, and the binding is yellow. Also a gift for a toddler.

I've had this Peanuts winter fleece since last Christmas, when I bought it on clearance at WM. I backed and bound it with a blue fleece and gave it to a friend for Christmas. She was thrilled! I would love to have kept it, but that's okay. There will be more blankets in my future, I think.

Well, I know! I have a Beetle Bailey fleece print that I bought over a year ago, and I finally bought backing and binding fleece. That will be a blanket for us, I think. But I also have Cat in the Hat fleece that would make an awesome blanket....and I love Dr. Seuss far more than Beetle Bailey. I just need to buy fleece for backing and binding.

Oh, and all backing and several binding fabrics were purchased at JAF's Black Friday sale. That was a good day!

A head start on winter....

Apparently I'm an optimist and am convinced that the hot summer will come to an end. :) Because I decided that now was the perfect time to make a new blanket for Thing 1. And not just any blanket - no, I had to make a warm blanket.



I bought the "car road" fleece for this blanket almost two years ago, during one of JAF's red tag clearance sales (everything on clearance goes to 50% off the clearance price). So I paid $2.50 per yard for it, and I bought two yards. (Thing 1 was 3 then, so I figured two yards would be astronomically long on him. Fast forward to 5, and it's not nearly as gigantic now, but still...) I then let the fleece sit for quite awhile before buying the hunter green fleece for the reverse side a few months ago. The blue fleece for the binding may have been purchased at JAF's Black Friday sale last year.

And here we are! I started putting this together Sunday, and I finished it Tuesday night. I used a basting spray to put the two layers of fleece together, then cut off the selvedges and evened up it all up, before binding the edges with blue fleece.

***Edited to add: I found this post lost in draft mode, when I was trying to finish up other posts! Poor post, lost for 3 years! This blanket is STILL in heavy rotation in our house.