The Lady Beekeeper

For our secret santa this year I suggested that on Christmas Eve we give our person a $5 gift that was somehow representative of the person giving the gift.  Then we would open the gifts and everyone would guess who had who.  I think everyone did a pretty good job at this – for instance my brother and Erin wanted Christmas ornaments for their tree so my mom gave my brother some ornaments she found at Savers (she left the tag on so Mark would know she found them while thrifting).  My brother (a talented knitter) knitted Will a handsome scarf.  Will gave my mom cat toys with googly eyes. (Frankly I have no idea how this represents Will but he had said to everyone at some point that whoever he got was getting something with googly eyes.  Weirdly everyone forgot he said this except my mom who actually guessed it was from Will.)

I had Erin and some TARDIS material from JoAnn Fabrics so I made her a Whovian oven mitt.  (Though this backfired a bit because no one realized I made it!  I will consider it a compliment…)  So here’s how to make a look-like-you-purchased-it oven mitt!  This is a nice easy pattern for those new to sewing!

You will need:

• 100% cotton thread*
• 100% cotton fabric* for the lining and exterior (I used two different patterns)
• INSUL-BRIGHT insulated lining
• Natural Cotton* Batting

*Note: It is important that you use natural fibers for the mitts, as you don’t want polyester melting all over your hands and pans.

Instructions:

Print out my oven mitt pattern below.  You may want to add an additional 1/4 inch of seam allowance if you are new to sewing (I only account for 1/4 inch of allowance).

Cut 2 (one wrong side and one right side) each of the lining fabric, exterior fabric, batting, and insul-bright.

Form two halves of the gloves by lining up lining, batting, insul-bright and exterior fabric in that order.

Pin and baste each glove half.

Next create two 1 foot strips of bias tape by cutting 1.5 inch strips of fabric on the bias ( at a 45 degree diagonal from the grain).  This creates a stretchy, malleable strip you can use as to finish seams.

Take each strip and press the two edges towards the center as shown below.  Congratulations – you have created bias tape!

To finish the cuff of the oven mitt fold out one side of the bias tape and pin it right side to right side, matching unfinished edges, on the inside of the oven mitt.

Stitch close to the fold you opened out.

Fold the bias tape to the front of the mitt half, keeping the unfinished edge folded under.  Pin.

Stitch close to the fold and trim excess bias tape.

To create a loop for your oven mitt, cut an 8 inch by 2 inch strip of fabric.  Iron the two edges towards the center and then press in half the long way (right sides out).  Stitch down the edge and fold in half.

Next pin the two halves of the oven mitt together with right sides facing in.  Make sure to include the loop for the oven mitt.  The unfinished edges of the loop should hang outside the mitt, and the loop should be sandwiched on the inside.

Zigzag stitch the two pieces together, trim excess.

Flip to the right side – and there you have it!  An oven mitt!

Since I got everything on sale or with a coupon at Joann Fabrics all the materials only cost me $10 total for 1/2 yard of each material!  And I still have enough left over for another 2 oven mitts!

The last couple years my family has been doing a secret Santa gift exchange instead of buying gifts for everyone in the family.  This works out extremely well.  Instead of drawing names out of a hat this year we used Elfster.  The site is great and allows you to exclude spouses from drawing each other, add wish lists, and it even includes a secret messaging system.  My family heavily abused the messaging system which made the whole gift swap thing hilarious.  For instance one of the questions I got (I guess in response to my vague wish list saying that I would like “anything sewing related”) was this:

Here’s the link to what they sent me:

This had me laughing for about an hour.

For the elfster swap I had to buy gifts for Erin, my brother’s wife.  I was very excited to get Erin because it meant I could go all out with Dr. Who themed gifts in addition to whatever puzzley things she asked for.  As I was leaving Walmart after picking up another present, I saw this perfect TARDIS blue sweatshirt.  For future reference it was the Hanes Women’s Fleece Zip Hoodie in Blue Allure.

I used the applique patch patterns I had created for my TARDIS dress to adorn the sweatshirt.  Here’s the finished product on my sister-in-law amongst our other Christmas treasures:

She really liked it!  So much so that my brother wants one too and I’ll probably make one for myself.  I’m also looking into putting them on Etsy… stay tuned for that!

I love Christmas traditions.  Our family Christmas is steeped in tradition. As soon as December rolls around we count down to Christmas on our chocolate advent calendars and pick out and decorate a lovely smelling fresh pine tree. On Christmas Eve we gather at my parent’s house for roast beef, my mom’s killer gravy and all the fixin’s. Then we sit round the fire and everyone receives an ornament hand picked by my Grandma. On Christmas Day after opening presents we head to my grandparent’s house where the German traditions kick in. We hunt for pickles (and a piece of coal from my great great grandfather’s coal mining days) on my grandparents’ Christmas tree. Then we eat delicious German wursts, my Grandma’s swedish meatballs, fleischsalat (the best way to describe this is its like potato salad but replace the potatoes with bologna), multiple types of potato salad and rye bread. For dessert there is homemade stollen and too many types of Christmas cookies to list.

One of my favorite traditions, started by my uncle when he first was married, is to cut a slice out of the stump of each year’s Christmas tree and paint it with events that were significant that year. He then turns them into ornaments and hangs them up before Christmas. It is like creating a piece of a time capsule that you get to open every year. Everyone in our family, now grown, have also adopted the tradition. My parents decorate their foyer with them. Here are some of my favorites.

Tree trunk memory ornaments

Another German tradition we celebrate is Saint Nicholas Day. On December 5th we leave our shoes by the front door and when morning comes they are filled with sweets, oranges, apples, nuts and little toys from Saint Nick! I can remember being so excited that I was one of the few schoolchildren who received gifts from Saint Nick (it clearly was because my grandma, being from Germany, had some serious Saint Nick connections). Well I must have been naughty for the last decade because Saint Nick hasn’t delivered anything for me recently, but he always fills my husband’s shoes full of treats and silly things. Luckily my husband wears a size 13 so I get to share the treats!

This year Saint Nick delivered some silly Adventure Time boxers much like the ones I’ll show you how to make in this post! But before you go… a Christmas give away! What are your favorite winter holiday traditions or memories? Post them in the comment section below by next Monday. I’ll mail the writer of my favorite comment a silly Christmas moose like this guy. (And in case you’re wondering, your odds are pretty good since I don’t usually get many comments. :) ).

Christmoose

Note these boxers fit my husband (size 34 waist with what he thinks is a big bum) – if you need a different size, you can scale up or down an inch or two. I used one yard of 43″ wide fabric – but after washing my pattern barely fit so I’d recommend 1 1/3 yards. Wash and dry your cotton print so you already have the shrinkage taken into account. You’ll also need waistband elastic the width of the wearer’s waist minus an inch.  See the bottom of the post for the pattern and make sure you scale it to match the 2″x2″ square when you print.

1. Layout your pattern pieces onto your fabric and trace/cut. Tomorrow I’ll post the pattern, I can’t figure out the best upload format at the moment. My pattern includes seam allowance.

2. First I need to show you how I did the seams which look identical on the inside and outside of the boxers.

I’m not sure if this is a real technique – if it is I don’t know what it is called. If someone can tell me, that would be helpful. Since you don’t want an itchy piece of fabric tickling you in your boxers all day I used this seam technique everywhere except the waist and legs where I did a rolled hem. What you do is your take the two edges you want to attach and press one edge right side out about 1/4 inch. On the second piece, press the edge wrong  side out.

Two pieces to be stitched together, one pressed wrong side out, one pressed right side out.

a. You then lay the two pieces of fabric on top of each other so the unfinished edge that you pressed is sandwiched in the middle.

b. Pin and stitch very close to the folded edge on the right side of the fabric.

c. Then flip over and stitch very close to the folded edge on the wrong side of the fabric.

3. Use this technique to stitch the two side front seams, and the center back seam.

4. Before I did the center front seam I added the flap for the fly. I first pressed the rectangle of fabric on the boxer’s left front down, forming a center front line.

5. Next I stitched down the cut edge, leaving an inch at the bottom opened.

6. On the boxer’s right side I pressed the edges of the flap.

7. I then pressed a piece of scrap fabric into a rectangle to fit over the edges I pressed. I sewed this in place on all sides. This was to reinforce the flap. Somehow I don’t have a picture of this, but you can see it in this picture.

8. I pressed the seam below the flap on both sides following the procedure mentioned in step 2 above.  Then I pinned the boxer front all along the center front seam.  I then sewed the center front below the flap following step 2.

9. I basted the top of the flap at the waist. Then I stitched from where I had stopped in step 5 to the end of the flap in a slight arc.

10. Sew the crotch together using the procedure in step 2.

11. Hem the bottoms of the boxers.

12. Press under the waist of the boxers.

13. Add the elastic waistband. At the flap you want to sew the elastic to the boxers unstretched. For the rest of the elastic I followed an example I can’t find anymore.  I’ll post the link if I find it again.  Basically I sewed the elastic to the front of the boxers at the halfway point unstretched.  Then I folded the boxers in half and stitched the elastic ends at this point.  I pinned two more times between the two areas I stitched.  Next I stretched out the elastic so it was taunt with the fabric and then stitched.

Pattern Pieces

Last week I was honored to be the “Member Project of the Week” on BurdaStyle! I am not going to lie, I couldn’t wait for work to end to check all the nice comments people had left!  What a great community!  Anyway, as promised here is how I made the butterfly hair pin for my updo!

One day while I was scouring pinterest I came across this link to a beautiful origami butterfly. It looked like a cute accessory to the french twist updo I had been practicing for my Bal d’Hiver ensemble. It was extremely quick and simple to make so I am trying to decide what I can use a ton of them on. For those who cannot follow the pictures on Pinterest I figured some English instructions may be helpful.

Here’s how I made a 5 minute butterfly hair pin

Since this technique is basically origami you want to create a thin solid rectangular piece of fabric that is as close to paper as possible. I used scraps of navy blue polyester lace, nude polyester stretch material and some medium weight fusible interfacing.

I first cut each of my scraps into roughly 2 inch by 3 inch rectangles.

Next I ironed my fusible interfacing to my nude stretch polyester to produce a material with a paperlike stiffness.

I sewed my lace to the other fabric. And trimmed it to make an even rectangle.

Front view of rectangle

Back View of Rectangle

Next I folded the rectangle in half the long way with the right side facing out.

I ironed it flat.

I folded the rectangle in half again the long way.

I slipped my finger under the top layer of fabric holding down the corner and pressed down to form a triangle with a bit of the wrong side fabric showing at the bottom.

I ironed this flat.

I flipped the piece over and did the same thing on the other side.

I then took the right corner flap of the triangle and lifted it up to the top middle of the right side of the triangle.

This will form a 3 dimensional c shape with the wrong side of the fabric showing.

Follow the same procedure on the other side and stitch the center portion together with a couple quick stitches to hold it.

Finished butterfly

Attach the back of the butterfly to a bobby pin – or your project of choosing!

Join me next Monday for some holiday fun and a give away!

Burdastyle version vs. Mine (obviously I can’t compete in legs or shape with the model…)

My husband’s family is from Nashville and my mother in law ends up planning all sorts of fabulous social events for local charities. This means my husband and I get to attend all sorts of fabulous events. For instance we went to a real live white tie ball (which for those unfamiliar means my husband wore tails and I wore a ball gown)! Well this year my sister in law was presented at a debutante ball after Thanksgiving.  When my mother in law explained the proper dress for me was cocktail attire, I decided I would try my hand at sewing a dress for the ball.

I have been interested in trying the print-at-home Burda Style patterns for a while now and I thought this dress would fit the bill. So I downloaded the pattern and headed to JoAnn Fabrics for fabric. They recommended stretch fabrics so I purchased nude polyester fabric and navy polyester lace. I had several coupons so the total cost for materials (zippers and all) was only $39!

Close up of blue lace over nude fabric

When I got home I started tackling the print-at-home pattern. I love sewing, but my least favorite part of the whole process is laying out and cutting my fabric and patterns. Well given this, the whole print-at-home process adds another layer of boredom to my sewing excitement. The first problem with the whole process is that you must print out the pattern true to size on your printer. Following the steps to measure out a test square to make sure you don’t shrink the pattern are easy, but what they failed to realize is that you can’t print to the edge of the paper. Every home printer in existence has a non-zero minimum border of white space to which it cannot print. This means that the clever little triangles that you are supposed to match up on each paper are cut off on one side. You can mostly estimate where they are supposed to go, but if you are a bit OCD like I am this will be incredibly annoying to you. After printing you have to line up and tape together all the sheets of  the pattern which is similar to doing a really boring puzzle. My pattern was 40 pages long so this took an incredibly long time. And about halfway through I realized I really didn’t have to tape the entire thing together because some of the pieces didn’t even get used for my pattern. This just made me feel as if I had just needlessly killed a forest. Since the patterns didn’t have seam allowance built in I transferred the exact pattern to my fabric and then had to measure and add all the additional allowances. Overall this print-at-home process increased the time to sew this dress by around 2 hours. I’ll have to remember to account for this next time I try another print-at-home pattern.

The rest of the process proceeded smoothly and the directions were fairly easy to followm until I got to the neckline. As I was lining up the shoulders and high neckline I realized that the neckline was way too small. My neck supposedly fit the exact dimensions of the size in the pattern, but it was like they did not account for the fact that everyone has a round rather than flat neck. Even on my mannequin (who has an incredibly petite neck) the fabric in the chest became contorted and bulged from the fabric around the neck. So I completely reworked the neckline. As I was fixing the neckline I also noticed that the front darts did not produce anything near as form fitting as the picture. So I added an additional set of darts, along where I would have added a princess seam. Here’s how I did both:

For the darts, I dressed my mannequin (whose name, if you are wondering, is “old girl” as in “you are looking pretty good old girl”) and pinched and pinned fabric from the tip of both busts down to the waist along the princess seam line. I don’t have a picture of this part but here’s a diagram of where I pinned (modified from this website).

White portion is where I pinned new darts on the mannequin along the black princess seamline

I then removed the dress from the mannequin, turned it inside out and drew on the fabric in marker where the pins formed the darts.

Next I removed the pins and inverted the darts to the insides of the fabric (right sides together) matching the lines I had just drawn. I then sewed along my markings to form the additional darts.

For the neckline I dressed old girl in the dress again and marked on both shoulder seams where the tension was beginning to cause the weird bulging. Then I removed the seams I had made on both shoulders (including the invisible zipper) and again dressed up old girl in the dress. I repinned the shoulder seams.  Then I pinned along an approximate neckline in front and back and removed the dress again.

Repinning the shoulders and pinning a new neckline.

Here I went back to my pattern and took the measurements from my neckline and shoulder pins to approximate the new neckline to make sure I didn’t make anything uneven.  I used my drafting curves to choose an appropriate neckline for the front and the back.

Using drafting curve to revamp the neckline on the pattern

Then I transferred the whole thing over to a new neckline pattern (because I didn’t want to destroy the original pattern). To my pattern I also added seam allowance. Since I am all about saving paper I always use the brown paper that comes in amazon packaging for my personal patterns. It is wide and long and irons out pretty well.

Transferring neckline pattern

I also had to make a pattern for the front and back neck facing since my neckline had changed so dramatically. I simply traced the new neckline of the dress onto another sheet of brown paper and made a 2 inch semi-circular pattern strip.  I used this pattern to cut some lace for the neck facing. Since I didn’t think it made sense to make the facing only lace, I also cut out some lightweight sew in interfacing to back the lace facing.

I then proceeded to sew the shoulder seams and neckline as recommended in the instructions, but omitting the invisible shoulder zipper since the neckline was now big enough to fit my head through. For my new neckline I really had to clip my curves but then everything sat beautifully flat.

The one additional thing I did differently from the included instructions was to understitch the neckline. I wish someone had taught me this technique earlier because it really makes your neckline sit flat and look like a normal neckline rather than something homemade and wobbly. Here is a great tutorial.  Oh and I realized my needles were doing strange bad things to the super stretchy fabric so a few stitches in I switched to a ball tip needle which pokes between the knit fibers rather than piercing them.

Here’s some pictures of me modeling the finished product:

Front View

Back View

My beautiful sister in law in her ball gown.

Finished product at the Bal d’Hiver with my handsome date.

Next week I’ll show you how I made my cute butterfly hair accessory using scrap fabric!