Pokemon Toys: Ash’s Hat, Pokeballs and Rattata

Here’s a little something I made for my daughter’s birthday in December:

My 8 year old absolutely loves Pokemon! Now she can really play trainer with an Ash Ketchum hat, zippered Pokeballs and a Rattata. She has other Pokemon toys to play with as well but this and a tiny Victini from Hong Kong are the only two that will fit in the balls. She’s satisfied with that. 😉

The hat was simply a Goodwill buy and it was actually new with tags still on for $2. I used some cheap fleece to cut a semi-circle for the front and hand-sewed it on. The C was just freestyle and very easy to do and also hand-stitched.

The Pokeballs were simple to figure out since I’d made fabric toy balls in the past. These however were lined and needed to have a zipper so that a small Pokemon toy could fit inside. I used two salvaged zippers from clothing items and cheap fleece from Walmart. As you can see, the button accents are different on the two balls because I wasn’t satisfied with how the zig-zag stitched edge of the first turned out. The black wasn’t bold enough for me so I made the second button with a black fleece backing.

Rattata was something my daughter has been asking for for two years. As far as I know, there has never been a plush Rattata toy manufactured so I resorted to altering an online pattern(found here:http://www.allcrafts.net/crochetsewingcrafts.htm?url=sewingstars.com/mousepattern.htm   )to make this one. Alterations to the pattern included enlarging the ears(which I did make too big really), adding little felt claws and whiskers and freestyling the eyes to more closely resemble the Pokemon. It isn’t a fantastic facsimile but my daughter knew exactly who it was and was thrilled. That’s good enough for me. 🙂

Sweatshirt slippers

I needed a new pair of slippers super fast so I decided not to dig out my Mary Jane slipper pattern but instead, use a simpler, elastic style. Prudent Baby has some great directions on how to put your slippers together.

I used an old sweatshirt for mine and used plain sweatshirt for all the pieces, even the “batting”.  The bottoms will probably wear out pretty fast because of that but I wanted something especially snuggly. 😉

These can be made for just the cost of your thread and two pieces of elastic(about $.15)as well as about 30 minutes of time.

 

Finished Diapers

Just some shots of the finished diapers for my sister’s baby. 😉

I kinda forgot to photograph some of the large ones but they were just plain blues and browns. I still owe her the covers and I’ll be working on those today.  🙂

100 t-shirts into cloth diapers

How’s that for a title? I was going to call this “The super big project I’ve been working on” but it just wasn’t as catchy. 😉

My sister is having her first baby and informed me that she wanted to use cloth diapers. Yay! So I promised to make them for her as the baby’s gift.

Well, I decided to make 18 smalls(7-11lbs), 18 mediums(10-22lbs), 4 covers, and 36 cloth wipes. Each diaper required 3 cotton t-shirts. I needed 9 t-shirts for the wipes. So that’s over 100 tees needed. Luckily I know a church thrift that sells them for $.10-15 each. It’s a significant investment of time finding the tees, since there are just piles of clothes to go through, but I enjoy treasure hunting. 😀

So the last few weeks I’ve cutting all the pieces needed for this project. Each diaper has 4 pieces. The soakers for each diaper need 8 pieces. Wipes are 2 pieces each. All in all I needed about 500 pieces cut. They’re almost  all cut out now(just a dozen inserts left) and I’ve have started sewing.

I need to finish by Thanksgiving.

Work in progress:

Boy’s pants to boy’s shorts for free

First I want to apologize and explain why I’ve been neglecting my blog. My two digital cameras were stolen. Unfortunately I’d uploaded the project pictures(and baby pictures too *o* ) onto my laptop, which was also stolen.  Mean people stink.  Anyway, I got my replacement camera yesterday and set to work snapping pics of my sewing again.

I’m really excited to get some posts up! I’ll even have a two tutorials for you all in June. One is a baby’s swaddle wrap from a t-shirt and the other is reusable swiffer dusters.

So, my 8 year old son is growing like a weed, up but not out. So his Winter jeans and khaki’s still fit his waist but not his length. So I cut them and hemmed them. Not terribly original but a way to save $20 on shorts this summer. 😀

10 minute sweatshirt garden gloves * Tutorial *

Recycle your old Winter sweatshirts into useful Spring gardening gloves. It’s super fast and easy, no pattern required!

First grab an old sweatshirt.

Turn it inside out and insert your hand into a sleeve. Stretch out your fingers and pin at the deepest and highest points of your hand shape. You can also use the bottom edge of your sweatshirt to make your gloves. I plan to make 3 pairs from one small sweatshirt. I just started with the sleeves.

Take out your hand and mark your glove shape with a marker/pen using your pins as guides.

Sew along your pattern line.

Trim.

On to glove #2. I used my already made glove to make a copy by tracing around my trimmed seams and sewing a bit inside  my line. You can do the pin & marker thing again if you want to though.

 

Turn the gloves right side out and marvel at your awesome free gloves!

These really took only 10 minutes and that included stopping to take pictures. Can’t wait to try them out this weekend in the garden.

Sweater & Leather Baby Boots

I made these elastic backed boots for a friend. Hopefully they stay on better that the prototype pair I made for my baby. I didn’t put elastic in those and she kicks them right off.
Anyway, I made these out of an old leather dress and sweater. I made a pattern by examining footie pj’s and copying the contoured pieces as best as I could.

Gift bag or purse from a sweater

This is an easy project for a damaged, outdated or too small sweater. Just turn it inside out and sew a straight line under the arms. Cut above it and zig-zag the edge for more durability. Add straps and you’re done! I used an old kid’s belt for my straps.

More homemade fitted diapers from t-shirts

I used the Fern & Faerie pattern again to make some medium sized diapers. My little one grew out of the smalls in 4 weeks. I guess then that smalls fit 8-12lbs. I think the smalls would have fit longer if the side flaps were larger. So I enlarged them for more waist room when making the mediums. I also skipped the top stitching. So far I don’t see it affecting functionality.

It took 22 cotton knit clothing items to make 7 diapers and 14 inserts. Notions cost $2.50.

Embroidered Cell Phone Case from a Baby Shirt

I picked up a wild colored baby shirt for $.10 at a yard sale last year just for the embroidery. The shirt was western style and probably from the 70’s. I used the front embroidery for the case. I still have the awesome back piece to use in another project. It’s a big peacock!

I use a scrap of sweater for the cushioning and lined it with the sleeve fabric. I think it looks pretty smashing with my new phone. 🙂