The old blog has been pretty quiet this week. And it might have to stay that way a bit longer. I’m spending every minute of my day painting our house. The outside! It’s raining today, so I’m here with you, but tomorrow it’s back to covering myself and the house in paint.

I think it might have been raining when I made this May Day crown too. It definitely was a very chilly May Day, which was too bad because my friend had a fantastic party with a may pole and everything. The day before the party my kids helped me cut out some petals out of felt, then in the evening I sewed them all up into flowers. I put some on a crown for my son and made my daughter and myself these flower crowns. They were super excited to wear them and the crowns have found a permanent place in the dress up box. I was pretty happy with how they turned out too. I didn’t really use any patterns, but I did look at this, this, and this photo for inspiration. With some scraps and a stitch here and there, you can pretty much make any flower. Sounds like a good rainy day project…

I know birthday crowns are not a new and exciting thing, but I never made one before so it was new and exciting to me. I think this might be my new birthday gift for kids. It’s quick, it’s customizable, it’s cheap and it’s actually fun to make. As an added bonus, this crown was made completely from my stash. Of course it ended up to big, but cut me some slack it was my first try.

For some reason I used to think sewing with felt was cheating, which is totally ridiculous and I’m done being snootie about felt. Lately, I’ve been trying to convince my daughter that just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, but I think I need to learn that just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s necessarily crappy. I tend to think the more difficult the thing is to make, the better it is.  But that is just silly.

The birthday party turned out to be pretty fantastic. The birthday girl is related to Smarty Pants–a balloon art genius of sorts–and everyone went home with one of his awesome creations. Well, the kids did at least. I was a little bummed I didn’t get one. He really was amazing and it looks like he can make pretty much anything from balloons: oscar the grouch, a dragon, abe lincoln, cruella da ville. Makes my little felt crown look pretty wimpy.

…a few warm things I made for the kids so far this winter. The scarves are made from the sleeves of an old felted cashmere sweater and the kids love them because they are so soft.  The flannel pillowcases were supposed to be their St. Nicholas day presents, but I completely forgot about St. Nicholas day.  So they were whipped up in 10 minutes on St Nicholas night right before bedtime. A couple french seams and a big hem and voila! a custom pillowcase. I might make some linen ones for myself after Christmas. And the hat is from an old Martha Stewart pattern.  I’ve used the pattern a bunch of times before, but the sizing is always tricky. I set out to make one hat and suddenly the whole family has them. Usually I just make them from felted sweaters, but for this one I made two hats (one from a sweater and one from an old stripey knit shirt) then fit them together right sides facing, sewed around the edge, turned it out, topstitched and ta da.

Here it is, the string of lights advent calendar tutorial (and pattern!). I made the pdf pattern file all by myself for the first time, so if you have problems with it just email me and I’ll try to fix it. Otherwise, hurry up! because advent is almost over!

materials

green wool felt
multi-color felt scraps
60 feet green yarn
green embroidery thread
lightweight treats (gum balls, dum dums, love notes, tiny ornaments)

pattern

download here

directions

Cut the yarn into six equal pieces (10 feet each or 120 inches each or about 3 meters each). Take three pieces and braid them together. This is more difficult then it sounds, but if you roll up the slack and just work with a little yarn at a time it’s much easier. Braid the other three together the same way. Then twist the two braids together and knot the ends.  It will stay twisted when you sew the lights to it.

Cut out 25 (or 24 or however many lights you want) circles and rectangles. Create the socket by sewing a blanket stitch to the edge of rectangle and the circle attaching them to each other.  If the rectangle is slightly longer than the circumference of the circle clip it to fit and continue sewing the ends of the rectangle together. Sew the sockets onto the cord–one every three inches.

Cut out the light bulb pattern piece. To sew the lights up faster you can fold your colored felt over and simply trace the pattern onto it with a marker (permanent or not it doesn’t matter) then sew the two pieces together staying inside the lines.  To be safe test the first light to see if it fits: sew and turn out, put a treat or two inside, then fit it inside the socket and see if it stays when it’s hanging upside down. If it slips out, just make the lights slightly bigger.  If you’d rather use the lights for decoration and not for treats you can stuff the light bulbs lightly and sew them onto the socket.

I didn’t really finish the ends of the cord (I just tied a knot on both ends).  But it would be sweet to make a little plug out of felt to hide the knot. To do this cut out four extra “socket bottom” circles and two extra rectangles.  Cut a slit in the middle of one of the circles and insert your knot, then attach the rectangle, just like you did for all the sockets, and attach the other circle to the other side–making a  round (European style) plug. You can even make some prongs out of felt to complete the look.

download the pattern here.

I made this half eaten gingerbread man last year, but I thought I’d post it again in case you are starting to freak out about how soon Christmas is (16 days). He’s super simple to sew up. I wrote up instructions and there is a pattern you can download too. If you’d like to see the other mutant gingerbread man I made click here and to know why I made them click here.

Plenty of you want a tutorial for the string of lights advent calendar, so look for that in a couple days. Now get off the computer and finish those christmas presents already.