Race Track Play Mat

I have some pretty great neighbors. Sadly they are moving away this week, and by away I mean far far away, out of state away, away all the way to California away…sniff, sniff! You may remember the dad’s appearance on my blog from some time ago here, and the mama recently abducted a finished project I was planning to blog. At any rate, their  youngest just turned 2, and I wanted to do a little something to celebrate his birthday and came up with this simple race track play mat – a rectangle mat with a race track on the inside, and a set of handles along with a pocket on the outside to hold a few cars.

Race Track Mat Tutorial

Materials

• Fabric – main and contrast (I purchased 1/2 yd of each)
• Scrap of fusible interface for snap backing
• Metal snap (or other closure system)
• Felt (I used two pieces of the pre-cut rectangles)
• Coordinating thread
• Supplies for the handles (I used webbing, or you could sew one with the remaining fabric)

Steps

Cut pieces for the bag:

• Body: 2 rectangles, one from the main and one from the contrast fabric (mine were 18 x 13 1/2).
• Pocket: 2 smaller rectangles for the pocket body – needs to fit onto one side of the main body when folded in the carrying mode (mine was 9 1/2 x 6 1/2).
• Pocket flap – 2 small pieces for the flap. (mine was 9 1/2 x 3 1/2)

Cut felt to make race track. I folded the felt in half length wise, cut one the top half of the figure 8, and then traced it to make the bottom half on the second piece of felt.

Once cut, I pinned the pieces to the contrast fabric for the inside of the play mat and stitched it in place. I stitched around both the outside and inside of the track, and also ran a zigzag down the center where the two pieces meet to secure those edges. With the track firmly in place, I moved to the outside of the bag, creating a car pocket.

Both the pocket body and flap were sewn with the right sides together, leaving a small opening to turn the fabric. Once turned, I pressed the fabric and top-stitched around the top edge on the main body to close the opening. For the pocket flap, top-stitch three of the sides (one long and both short ends).  Determine the placement for the pocket and flap, and then sew each piece to the front of the main fabric of the play mat, stitching down and around the packet body, and across the single long edge of the pocket flap.

In preparation for the final assembly, I attached the fusible interfacing to the backside of the contrast fabric, and ran a little basting stitch to hold webbing handles to the main body of the mat – remember to have all the raw edges lined up.

With the right sides facing together, I sewed around the edges of the bag leaving a small opening for turning. Clip the corners and turn right side out.

Instal the closure per manufacturer’s instructions, leaving enough space for top stitching. Run a top stitch around the edge of the mat to close the opening and create a nice finished look…

…and then, go make a little person happy.

Mother’s Day

When I picked up the fabric for last month’s apron sew along, I decided to get enough to make a gift for my mama for Mother’s Day. Being from Holland, my mom has a special fondness for orange and who doesn’t need a fun pot holder, especially in a new kitchen (my parents had a major kitchen remodel done last year)? I turned to my trusty, and always handy, Fabric-by-Fabric One Yard Wonders book…and made a cute pot holder. It is a little hard to tell in this picture (double handed modeling and simultaneous iPhone pic taking just wasn’t happening), but the pot holder is a long strip with a pocket for your hands at each end. Seems like a clever design to me, I’ll have to get feedback on the practical application from my mom.

It just so happens that my mother in law (and pop too) is visiting with us. She recently picked up an iPhone, so sewing a cozy seemed like a good option. The fun part…well at least I think it is fun…is that I used fabric remnants from my knitting bag project which she helped me pick out – so I felt pretty confident she would like the print.

For my part, I am meeting some other lovely mothers to hike the always brutal incline in the morning (thank you Nana for watching my kids on mothers day – my husband is still out of the country – so I can play in the morning), and later we are going on a family outing to the MAT circus performance in the afternoon.

Wishing you a Happy Mother’s Day!

Update: picture from this mornings adventures with some mama friends – the incline/barr tail on Pikes Peak.

Reading (the importance of…)

I didn’t read the pattern properly, doing only one decrease row when the Alberta pattern called for many. Sadly, I only discovered this after having knit 8 inches beyond that! It was pretty painful…but, it’s been ripped back, redone and slowly I’m getting back on track.

In other news, I started on motif 6, a smocked tassel stitch and I am itching to cast on the Rock Island lace shawl (once I figure out which color to go with).

Hope you are working on fun things.

My little people

Enjoying an afternoon at the school’s annual picnic.

April Sew Along Project: Hot Pad Apron and Placemats

The project for this month’s sew along was a 2 part effort: the hot pad apron from the Fabric-by-Fabric One Yard Wonders book and placemats. I decided to get back on track, having missed last month’s pillows and purchased the supplies for the apron. This was a fun project to sew, and doing the pleats was a new thing for me.  I made one small modification to the pattern, making a skinnier, longer, double sided waist tie for the apron. I like to wrap things around and tie them upfront – makes me feel fancy. The pattern called for quilting weight cotton or home decor fabric. I went with the latter as I liked this print. Its a bit stiff, especially once you factor in the hot pads on the underside. I’m guessing with wear and washing it will soften up. When taking pictures of the apron, my daughter and I decided to try our hand at making raisin bread.

I was going to leave it at that, and just do part of the challenge for this month. However, I got a second wind at the last minute yesterday evening and decided to get the placemats done as well. I searched through the remnants and items in the closet, and pieced together a placemat for each of the kids. The left over fabric from our barnaby bear (February’s sew along project) became a placemat for my daughter, while my son’s is pieced together from the remnants of his messenger bag Christmas gift.

And speaking of my girl, here she is straight out of bed asking for pancakes to go with her new placemat.

On and off my needles

As of last night, I’ve got 12 inches done on the Alberta vest. I’m slowly making my way to the goal of 14, at which point things start to get more interesting with shaping the shoulder area.

In the meantime … because for some reason I like to have a few thing going at once … I cast on some fingerless gloves. My stash isn’t large, but I have a few skeins that were given to me over the years and I wanted to put them to use. One of them is a skein of Noro Kureyon and this camp out mitt pattern is just perfect for my one little skein. We are planning on camping in Moab over memorial day weekend, so in addition to being pretty, they may come in handy as well!

Despite the image, I’m just about finished with the first glove.

I also just finished up motif 5, from my Learn-to knit Katie monthly knit along.

I’m still on a mission to find summery knits, more specifically neck accessories, and I have a serious crush on another Brooklyn Tweed pattern (shocking I know) the Rock Island Lace Triangle. So, my internal dialogue goes a little something like this: It is so pretty. It is a bit intimidating. I think I’m in love. I don’t know a thing about blocking wires and T pins, nor do I have the supplies. It would be a challenge. Could this be the perfect summer accessory? What if I spend the time and it isn’t my thing…and so on and so forth. Dilemmas, dilemmas!

On the sewing front I missed last months sew along. Between the construction at our home and torn up craft area, our vacation and Jackson’s passing, it just didn’t happen. However, I have the sewing area back together, and picked up supplies so there is no excuse to get back on track with the project for this month!

There you have it, the crafty update. I hope you are finding and finishing fun things.

Gifts for Gents: Felt iPhone Case

My folks got fancy and picked up a set of iPhones recently. I knitted an iPhone cozy for my mom a while back. My Dad mentioned he was interested in one, but with one small request…a place to hold the headphones that come along with the iPhone. I didn’t feel like a knitted one was quite masculine enough, nor did I know how to tackle the whole pocket thing…so, I opted to go down the sewing route. After a failed attempt with some geometric fabric, I switched gears and came up with a little something else; a felt iPhone case.

I ended up trying a few different options – the flap/pocket, one with a band across the back, one with a narrower flap…all looked good, had varying pocket sizes, and all followed the same basic steps. The fun part is you can easily modify the pattern to suit your needs. Here are the steps I took.

1. Cut two strips of felt, one for the body and one for the cover. The width of the felt should cover both the width and depth of the phone (including any case on the phone), as well as the seam allowance. In my case, the body of the case was 3.5 inches in width and 10 inches long. The case cover was also 3.5 inches, and I cut a curved edge for interest.
2. Assemble the pieces and mark the snap location.
3. Instal the snap to each piece of the phone case. I bought a little kit from one of the local shops.
4. Line up the snaps and find the proper placement of the cover on the backside of the phone case.
5. With the case unfolded, sew along the bottom edge of the case cover attaching the cover to the back of the case.
6. Refold the case, and sew up each side of the case.
7. Voila, you are done and can enjoy the new phone case.