Prinny Fleece Hat

I get to accompany my 6th graders to camp next week.  And because it'll be chilly for us, I offered to help the kids in class make personalized fleece hats for the trip.  A friend donated a ton of fleece to me, and I was so happy to put it to good use!

So, during lunch recess for the past two months or so, I've been helping the kids sew and design their hats.  They were very creative with their designs, too!  They chose everything from dogs, sheep, tigers, and cats, to Ninja Turtles, Dragon Ball Z, Legend of Zelda, and  Frozen.

And I finally finished my own hat for camp!  I decided to make a Prinny!



Prinny: A reincarnation of a human soul in Hell (the Netherworld) or Heaven (Celestia).  The Prinnies need to earning money to pay off their debts, their sins, before being reborn as humans again.

It's a character from the game Disgaea, a really awesome RPG for the Playstation 2--which was also re-released on the PSP and the Nintendo DS--and two games called "Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?" and "Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood!" for PSP.  (Though I hear that the Prinny shows up in all of Nippon Ichi games.)

The Prinnies are so pathetically cute!  When I got my new car in September, I named him Prinny, and I have a decal of the dancing Prinny on the back.  :D

Anyway, for my hat, I picked a dark blue, then glued on white eyes with black pupils and a yellow beak.



For extra depth I wanted to include their demon wings on the back.  I used my adhesive fabric to make them a bit more stiff.




I absolutely love it!  This picture is horrible, and doesn't do its cuteness justice!

 


~Buttons

Legend of Zelda Bookmark: "Hey, Listen!"

For Christmas, I wanted to make a cross-stitched bookmark for one of the boys I work with.  He's as big a fan of Zelda as I am!  *lol*  It's funny to think how much I have in common with a 13-year-old autistic boy.

So, I bought a small Navi charm at the Phoenix Comicon Fan Fest a few weekends ago, and I wanted to attach it to the bookmark.

I stitched the words, "Hey, Listen!" that Navi is famous for saying, and then added a small Triforce.



And then I added a blue felt background, to cover up the stitches.  I attached it with a hot glue gun.







It turned out so cute!  And he really enjoyed it, too.


~Buttons

Hogwarts House Scarf and Hat

Pockets is a very proud Hufflepuff, but it's hard to find nice Harry Potter things that aren't Gryffindor.  So, we're always on the look out for things we can make into Hufflepuff things (and Ravenclaw for me).  While at JoAnn a few days ago, I found a really cute gold and black argyle fleece.  And since I'm going to crazy making fleece hats, I'm enjoying working with the material.  And I thought it would be awesome to make Pockets a Hufflepuff hat and scarf!

So, the first thing I did was determine if I wanted the argyle diamonds to be horizontal or vertical:

Vertical

Horizontal

I decided that the vertical looked better, having the diamond's long points be up and down.  Then I had to decide if I wanted it to have two full gold diamonds, or two full black diamonds.

Black

Gold

I decided to go with the black.

I cut out two strips (the fabric was 60 inches wide).

Then I lined up where the diamonds met, and trimmed both edges.  Using clear quilting thread, I sewed the two edges together.

The seam is hardly noticeable!

Now, for the hat, I traced the pattern, again with the diamonds going vertically.

You cut a front and a back piece, then sew up the sides, right side to right side (see a more detailed tutorial on that here).  I left about an inch or an inch and half undone at the bottom, because I wanted to sew that seam on the outside, and fold up the brim.

Turn it ninety degrees, and sew up the little V that's still open.

This is the outside of the brim, with the seam on the inside.  (Does that make sense?)

And the final product:

It turned out so cute!  She really loved it when I gave it to her!

(This is me, trying it on.  I only wish they had the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw, and I'd made myself a set!)


~Buttons

Hooded Towel

Happy Holidays!!  Pockets here.  Did you all enjoy your turkey?  I certainly did.  One of my favorite parts of having a significant other is that now I get TWO turkey dinners instead of just one.  Score.

Anyway, this month one of my very bestest friends, Bird, is having a birthday party for her darling 1 year old.  Poor Birdlet has been the unfortunate recipient of many of my attempts at baby clothes and also the very first quilt I ever made.  So keeping the tradition alive of pawning off my crafts on her I decided to make a hooded towel.

There are a ton of tutorials for this on Pinterest.  I read a bunch, attempted one, failed horribly, tweaked the directions and ended up with an awesome towel!  So here's how I did mine!

I started with one towel and one hand towel.  Versions 1.0 and 2.0 respectively.

With 1.0, I shortened the hand towel to the suggested length.

However, this left one ginormous end (like the far right edge) that down the line, my machine could NOT get through.  It caused much screaming and frustation.  It also made the design on the hood slightly unappealing to the eye which I'll point out later.

On 2.0 I shortened the hand towel only in that I cut both bulky edges off.  This made it a breeze to sew later and the hood a bit larger than 1.0.

After this fold it in half so the cut edges are together.  Turn it 90 degrees and sew down the two short sides.

This will leave the longest side (the cut sides) open:

Next, put your left hand inside the opening and grab the top right corner.  Poke the corner in so your left hand can grab it.  

Take that top right corner and nestle it up against the inside top left corner.  You'll end up with this:

Pull the bottom right corner, where my hand is, open and your hood will start to form.

(see how one half has that decorative line and one doesn't?  That. drove. me. insane.  I opted for a different type of towel for 2.0 for that reason.  It might have turned out more symmetrical if I hadn't cut the other side so much that the same decoration is actually at the very bottom of the other half.  Also, bulky towel edge. GRRRRRAAAHHHHH)

 Arrange it to your liking.

This next step is important, do it immediately!

Put it on your head.  :D  And then send everyone you know pictures of yourself wearing ridiculous, toddler sized, KKK-esque, towel hood.  Seriously though, it's almost impossible to resist the urge to put this thing on your head at this point.  It's actually really warm, I can see why kids love it.  

Okay.  That's the hard part, now it's easy.  At this point your hood still has an unsewn opening down at the bottom.  The next step in a lot of tutorials is to just sew the hood as is to the towel.  I was completely unable to do this.  The design of the hood makes the two edges very uneven.  I sewed it as is and then had to rip it. I missed sections of the second edge so it left gaping holes.

So I threw an extra step in there and sewed the hood closed.  This is also where it is a god send to cut off those huge towel edges.  It will make the hood a tiny bit bunchy but I think that just adds to the coziness.

Now, sew it to the very middle of your towel.  I was so enraged at my machine not sewing through bulky towel on version 1.0 that I just sewed it on and didn't bother to check or pin.  I just wanted it done.  As expected, it's laughably off center.  I was much more careful with 2.0 and pinned very thoroughly.

I sewed it just one on top of the other.  I did NOT do right side to right side.  I wanted to try and keep the seam as minimal as possible.  After I sewed this I reinforced it with an additional zig zag stitch.  The towel is heavy and puts a lot of strain on this seam.

YOU'RE DONE!  Good job!!

Now put it on again!

An optional step is to add some embellishments.  I wanted to do a decrative edge stitch on the large towel but my stitches were so small compared to the wide edging on the towel.  I decided to attempt a monogram instead.  It turned out okay, not great.

Then I laid it out.  Folded the large towel up in half and then up in half again.  Then I rolled the edges in and tied some scrap fabric from the Birdlet's quilt around it and now I'm party ready!

I can't wait to see how she looks in this thing.  She's only a year old so I think she'll be swimming (hahaha) in it and I expect it to be ADORABLE!  Hopefully Bird will let me post some after pics.

What do you guys think?  Pretty easy craft?  It seems more complicated that it actually is.  On version 2.0 I think I spent, at most, an hour.  Let me know how yours turn out.

Thanks for reading!  Happy Holidays!!!

~Pockets

  

Dachshund Pajama Pants

I love all things Dachshunds, so when Pockets and I were out shopping yesterday, I saw this adorable Dachshund flannel print at Joann.  I had to buy it!



I decided it would make cute and comfy pajama pants.  So I found a tutorial on Pinterest and got to work!

Materials:
About 2 yards of fabric
Thread
Sewing machine
Elastic

First, use an existing pair of pajama pants as a pattern.  Fold the fabric over and place the pajamas along the folded edge.





I placed mine a little further from the edge so that the legs would be wider.

Next trace about an inch away from the pajamas; this will give you a seam allowance.


I used a pen, so the lines are a bit hard to see.

Next, cut the line, going through both layers.  It'll give you a weird looking piece like this:



Repeat on the other side of the fabric.


I just put the cut out pattern on the opposite side and traced it that way.

So you'll have to identical pieces:



Place them together, right side to right side, and stitch only along the curve.



So it's only sewn together by both curves.



Now, open it up and place both of the SEAMS of the curves together.





Next, sew up the curve of both legs.  I started at the middle and went down each leg separately, but you could do it from one leg up then down to the other leg.



Flip it right side out, and sew up each leg's hem.  I folded it under twice, then did a double hem.


Make sure you try it on before stitching your hem.  You may need to take more or less depending on your height.

Next, pin the top hem down about an inch (or however much you need to make a pocket for your elastic).



Sew all around the top, leaving only an inch open.



Use a safety pin to get the elastic through the sewed up pocket.  Sew the ends of the elastic together.



Stitch up the last inch on the waist hem and you're done!









They are oh so comfy!

~Buttons