Little Homemade Homes Part 3: Fabric House Ornaments

This is the final homemade home I made for the holidays. This project also came about from a pin on Pinterest. The Fabric Home Ornaments free pattern is from the Retro Mama Blog. Her houses are absolutely adorable. Take a look!

The originator of this project included even more details on her houses- wee door numbers and little birds. These homes were fun to make, but they took me way longer to complete than I had expected which is why I skipped some of the details. Another way that I deviated from the original pattern is that I hand embroidered the stitching around the doors and windows. I tried the first few with my machine and I wasn't thrilled with the results. Mine didn't turn out looking as nice as the ones shown with the pattern. The hand-stitching of course took longer, but they came out so much lovelier that way.

I made twelve in total, but I couldn't complete them all at once so I didn't get images of them all. These were given to my family and the children's teachers. Everyone who received one of these really loved them. This is a very nice and easy holiday sewing project.

♥ Andrea ♥

Screaming Cat Halloween Sewing Project

We're very excited for Halloween this Saturday! Here's a Halloween decoration I wanted to share with you that I made recently. It started out as a drawing based on screaming cats from vintage Halloween decorations, but after I started working on it, my husband John, thought it should be an homage to our sweet Marvin, who passed away this past spring. So, I added some white patches to his face.

If you would like to make this, I made a template that you can find here. I didn't include the white patches, because I figured that anyone wanting to make this, will just want to make a black cat and also the white patches are very finicky and might just be easier to freehand. 

Supplies

14" Embroidery hoop

Fabric to fit your hoop (I used quilt weight cotton)

Embroidery stabilizer

Felt- black, white, green, red, yellow (this is a great project for using up scraps)

No-Sew Fabric Glue

Green thread

Directions

To make this, print the template, cut each piece out of the paper template and then use it to make your felt pieces. When making larger and smaller shapes that are the same, I like to cut the small pieces first and then place them on top of a larger piece of the colour of felt I want underneath it and cut around the smaller one to make the larger pieces. I've given you a template only for the smaller shapes so you can do this. Use approximately a 2/8" allowance for this.

For the little specks of the light in the cat's eyes, trace the circular bottom of a small spool of thread or another small circular object to make a little circle and cut out of white felt. Then, carefully cut this into a tiny crescent.

Before starting to use your hoop, trace the outside hoop onto a piece of felt and cut it out. This is going to be your backing piece once you're done.

I used a quilt weight cotton and backed it with embroidery stabilizer before sewing the finished cat head to it. This ensured that the fabric didn't stretch and buckle while I sewed it. You may choose not to use stripes like I did, as keeping those lines straight makes this project more difficult.

Cut away your stabilizer around the back of your cat head and put the finished piece into the embroidery hoop. Cut the fabric one inch around the hoop and finish the back using the directions here. I suggested that you trace the outside of the embroidery hoop for the backing instead of the inside as recommended in the instructions in the link because I tried it the way that was suggested first and I found it really awkward to get the right fit on the back. So, for a slightly quicker finish, instead of stitching the back piece of felt onto the back, you can use a permanent fabric glue to glue the felt backing to the edges of your hoop, or if you choose to stick with her method and hand stitch it, just trim your edges slightly.

I hope to make a devil and Jack o lantern based on these other drawings I made of vintage Halloween decorations- maybe for next year.

Have a great Halloween! 

♥ Andrea ♥

Miss Independence Bag

Hey, how's it going? Check it out- I finally finished this handmade bag! I'm pretty excited about it. It's perfect in so many ways.

This bag is the Miss Independence Bag from the book Big-City Bags by Sara Lawson. I used Cotton + Steel fabrics for the exterior and interior. I bought the interior fabric for a different project, but when the fabric showed up, I realized that the colours were slightly different in person and would look terrible against my skin as a blouse. I was happy to see that it coordinated well with the fabric I had chosen for this bag.

Overall, this pattern is great. Sara's directions are thorough and clear. There were only a few wtf moments for me where I wasn't sure exactly what I should do, but I managed to figure things out :)

One particularly tricky part of this project was my old pal, binding. I love the way it finishes the bag and makes it look like such a professional job. Sewing the one side with the machine was okay, but I just couldn't do the other side by machine as suggested in the book and get a nice finish. So the inner side of the binding is hand-stitched. It took a very long time to do it because the size and weight of the bag made it awkward, but the result was certainly worth the added effort.

The main reason I chose to make this bag first from Sara's book was because I loved the size. I'm really enjoying it for work. It can hold everything I need it to. I changed one detail and opted for an open pocket on the inside instead of a zippered one, which has turned out to be handy for pens and lip balm.

For those of you still waiting for a handmade hairy beast, I'm getting so close now to finishing a batch. It's been a huge project for me that I've chipped away at for months and months on evenings and weekends. I think I've grossly underestimated the amount of time it takes for me to make them previously- which I see now can happen when you love what you do. I'm in the home stretch now and that feels great. It looks like I'll have them available for sale by mid-November. There will only be a few available- less than half the amount that have been requested of me, but I have ordered additional fur to make another batch afterwards. The second batch will include some wee ones as well, but I'm sure it will be several months before a second batch would be completed. Again, if you want to be one of the first to know when the hairy beasts will be available sale, please send me an email.

Also, I'm hoping to post a little Halloween craft tutorial later this month- stay tuned!

♥ Andrea ♥

*This post contains affiliate links*

Handmade Lilou Cat Dress

I made a dress for myself :) This is the first dress I've ever made for me. And while I would hate for a bonefide seamstress to look it over, from a distance it looks pretty fantastic and I love it. This dress is the Lilou dress from Tilly Walnes' book, Love at First Stitch: Demystifying Dressmaking

I chose a gathered waist instead of the original pleated waist for this Lilou dress because I thought it would better suit this fabric. I also added a trim to the bottom. This dress looks so much nicer with the trim. It took me probably a solid 2 hours to put in my first invisible zipper, and it's not perfect, but perfection will come in time, I'm sure.

As usual, I didn't follow the 'rules' of the book and I'm sure I would have been better off had I started with the easier patterns in the book and progressed to this more difficult one. I just couldn't help myself and I jumped right into the back of the book. I made a few mistakes that I probably could have avoided- like not doing a mock up, so I had to take the straps apart to shorten them after the dress was all done. It was a bit of a hack job to put them back together again, but oh well, it's all a process of learning. All in all, I learned a ton.

I'll be back soon with more project inspiration. I'm almost finished making a bag that I'm excited to show you and I've started cutting up the fur for the batch of hairy beasts I will be releasing later this year.

I'd love to see what you're working on too. Share your projects here in the comments if you like, or connect with me on Instagram (@AndreaTeetoo).

Happy sewing!

♥ Andrea ♥

Handmade Dress

Hello! I just finished making this dress. I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out. My confidence has increased tremendously with this dress and I feel that I will no longer shy away from sewing clothes. In fact, I'm pretty hooked now.

I recently purchased Tilly Walnes' book, Love at First Stitch: Demystifying Dressmaking. This book combined with the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Sewing, have helped me a lot in my quest to learn how to sew well. If you are new to sewing or feel you would like more of a helping hand through sewing clothes, I highly recommend these two books.

Tilly's book includes six patterns that increase in difficulty with each project. I've almost completed the first one and have ordered fabric to complete several of the others. This really is a great book. And her blog, Tilly and the Buttons, is fantastic as well. I notice her most recent post is a tutorial on buttonholes- sure could have used that last week...

And apparently I've turned a new leaf... I've fallen in like with binding.

But the true test of a dress is it's twirlability and I am delighted to report it has passed the test. The pattern I used is Butterick 6486 and the fabric is a vintage sheet, both picked up at a thrift store.

Happy sewing!

♥ Andrea ♥

Hello & An Eyeball Pillow DIY

Hello! Long time no see, hey?

Receiving this adorable customer appreciation shot recently, inspired me to write a post. This is Rosie. Isn't she delightful?! I am thrilled to think about the adventures Rosie is going to have with her Furry Beast :)

Truth be told, I miss Teetoo. Over the many iterations of my life, I have found that I have swung back and forth between two loves; natural healing and art making/crafting. But I have yet to find a nice balance between the two. I have always found myself in a position where I felt I had to leave one for the other. At this time, I am very involved in my natural healing life as a homeopath and my full time work at the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine, but I would very much like to be sewing and drawing more than I have time to.

One thing I've been working up to do, is to make a big batch of Giant Sasquatches. I've had a lot of inquiries about them and I miss making them. I have no idea how long it is going to take me to get them done, but I am planning to do them this year. If you would like one and you want to have a better chance of getting one when the batch is available, you can either send me an email, follow the blog, like my Facebook page or follow me on Intstagram (andreateetoo). I will post to all of these places before I add the Sasquatches to the shop whenever that may be.

I thought I would share some photos from Instagram of a few projects I have worked on over the last year with you today. There aren't very many, but it is nice for me to document them here; for posterity's sake and in hopes of inspiring others to find more time to be creative.

The first two images are of a patchwork pillow I made for our bed several months ago. It was originally going to be a quilt, but I have learned that I am a crafter who likes to do a project that I can start and finish fairly quickly and though I've managed to make a few lap quilts over the years, I have yet to complete a full-sized quilt. In this case, I opted to turn the quilt into a pillowcase so I could feel good about actually completing something :)

The next project is a Halloween bunting I made from this Heidi Kenney Halloween Bunting Spoonflower fabric. This was a fun, quick and easy project. I put a star fabric on the back, so I can reverse it and keep it hung up in the living room the rest of the year. 

The illustration is a tree drawing for some friends who were married in September and wanted to make a Wedding Tree Guest Book. 

Over the summer, I made a lunch bag for my daughter, Winnie. I used the Quilted Lunch Bag pattern from the book, One-Yard Wonders. This is the second project I've made with this book and like the other one, The Folklore Bag, I found the instructions to be easy to follow and I am extremely happy with the final product.

This next project is something I made recently for my son, Eamon's, upcoming birthday in March. I saw an eyeball pillow for sale on ModCloth a while ago and thought he would love it. They don't have it in stock anymore, but I thought it would be fun to make my own anyway. So today, I'm going to give you the how-to so you can make your own eyeball pillow too.

Eyeball Pillow DIY

Materials

I used felt for this project. You will need some white and black felt and whatever colour you want for the iris, white thread, red thread, black thread and thread to match your iris colour, no-sew fabric glue and recycled polyfil.

Cut It Up

You can make this pillow in any dimensions you like. My pillow ended up being 12" around and 3.5" deep. For mine, I just found a top to a wicker basket that was a large circle and traced it for my template. It was approximately 12.5" in diameter and I cut two of these. You can use anything- a large serving plate would be a great option. 

Then I guessed on the proper depth of the pillow for that size of diameter and I went with 3.5", so I measured around the perimeter of my circle to make a strip of white felt that was about 4" x 40". Cut your strip a bit longer than the perimeter of your circle.

I found some other random round items to trace for the iris, pupil and white spot. My iris measures 6" across, my pupil measures 4" across and the white spot is a 1" circle.

Sew It Up

First take your iris and position it in the center of one of your large white circles (or off to one side if you like). Pin it down and sew it on with thread that matches the iris' colour. 

Then take your pupil and pin and sew it to the center of your iris, using black thread.

Now thread your machine with red thread and sew in some random veins. I just used a straight stitch and changed the direction every few stitches and tried to be as random as possible. To make the veins look  more realistic, sew a few of them so they split and make some of them span from the edge of the eyeball all the way to the iris and make some of them only span part way. 

Now take your long white strip and stitch one long side of it to the right side of the front of your eyeball. Your strip will be longer than the perimeter of your white circle, but don't worry about that. Sew right up until you meet the top of the strip and stop. 

Now take the other white circle that will be the back of your pillow and sew the other side of the pillow to the other side of your white strip (with right sides facing). Leave a little opening of about 5 inches before your strip end meets up with the front of the strip. Now clip around the edges of the seam allowance every 1/4" or so and flip right side out. 

At this point, I folded the end of my long strip under and laid the fold down as an edge onto the front of the white strip and with my machine I stitched the fold very close to the edge of the fold onto the front part of the strip so that it made a neat little seam. I left the five inch opening between the back of the pillow and the strip for stuffing. 

Stuff your pillow until it is nice and plump. You may have to do some pressing down and even punching here and there to make the pillow do what you want it to.

Now hand stitch the little opening at the back of your pillow.

Finally, use your no-sew fabric glue to glue your white spot down and you're done!

I hope you enjoy this little project!

If any of my directions are confusing, please leave me a comment and I would be happy to help and/or change my wording here to make it easier to understand.

Happy sewing! And hopefully, I'll post here now and then over the next few months. I've missed you!

♥ Andrea ♥

Pom Pom Flower Fairy Pillow

This is the last thing I made over the Christmas holidays. Years ago I made a pillow for my son which he sleeps with every night. My daughter loves his pillow and so she has been asking me to make her a special pillow for a long while now.





Winnie really wanted a fairy pillow so I put this super cute fairy fabric from Michael Miller on one side. The star fabric is also Michael Miller and the flower fabric on the reverse is an Anna Maria Horner print that I've had for years. I'm so delighted she loves it and I kind of wish I made myself a pom pom pillow :)

♥ Andrea ♥

Lace-Trimmed Vintage Sheet Nightgown

This is the nightgown I promised I would share that I made for my daughter for Christmas this year. I just love the way it turned out! I think the style and colours of this nightgown are just about as lovely as can be. I did start off with a pattern, but patterns and I don't always get along so I changed it up quite a bit in the end, mostly around the neck. I got frustrated with the instructions and I think sometimes I don't like being told what to do. Ha!

I've had this fabric for a very long time and always had a hunch that the large vintage sheet might someday become a nightgown. I cringed slightly when I cut the sheet. I may have to at least make a pillowcase or two with the left over fabric.

This dress is reminiscent of the pillowcase dress I made for a dear friend years ago. It's amazing to me to think that was four years ago now!




I haven't been posting as much lately. One of the reasons is that I have been loving going to bed really early and reading. I feel myself becoming quieter lately and wanting to spend more time alone; reading, writing, and just thinking things over. It's been very nice. But I'll be back soon to share some photos of a sweet little pom pom trimmed pillow I made for Winnie as well.

I hope your January if off to a wonderful start!

♥ Andrea ♥

Lumpy Space Princess Pillow *free pattern*

I'm finally ready to post this lumpin' pattern!

To make your LSP pillow, please click and print the links below. You won't need to print out the cover page, but I thought I would include it in case someone wants to print it out as a booklet and give it as a little gift to an Adventure Time loving sewer.

Please note, when printing 'page 1' you may have to set your printer to 'landscape' layout so that it will come out properly. And there are a couple of places on 'page 2' where Acrobat is turning my effs and in two cases, my effs and whatever letter follows, into boxes and, well, right now it's the middle of the night and I just can't figure it out! So, let's just pretend that those are there on purpose and it's a secret Easter egg you're meant to decode and when you do, you will receive magical powers. *Please note, I am not responsible for anything that may occur as a result of said magical powers.

This is my very first pattern I've made for anything besides the ones I make for personal use. I would appreciate it so very much if you would offer me any feedback you can on it please!

Making Your LSP

You will need...
1 half yard of soft purple slightly stretchy fabric and small bits of red, yellow and black felt and stuffing.

LSP Pillow pdf Pattern Cover
LSP Pillow pdf Instructions Page 1
LSP Pillow pdf Instructions Page 2
LSP Pillow Body Piece A 
LSP Pillow Body Piece B
LSP Pillow Body Piece C

*If you would like to re-post this pattern somewhere, I would appreciate it so much if you would link to this post in my blog vs. linking directly to my pdf links. Thanks so much for understanding.

Have a lumpin' great time making this LSP! I'll leave you with some sage advice from the princess of lumps herself,  "at the end of the day, it's all about the lumps."

♥ Andrea ♥

Lumpy Space Princess Pillow

I made a Lumpy Space Princess pillow for Johnny for Father's day. We are pretty big Adventure Time fans and John has a special place in his heart for LSP. Just as we suspected, she's obnoxiously taken up residence in John's spot on the couch. And when she's asked to move, she says,
"Oh my Glob, can't you see someone is already sitting here?"

LSP was a very simple project. I started her last week when I went for a sewing date with Elycia and I finished her in a couple of hours later at home. I'm going to share the pattern for anyone who might be interested in making their own lump to love and I'm also planning to give one away to one of you lovely readers in August.

♥ Andrea ♥

Springtime Marketplace Preparations

Tomorrow's the big day! I'm so excited to be a vendor at the Toronto Etsy Street Team's, Springtime Marketplace! Here are a few things I will have for sale at my table.

A couple of new items that I am thrilled to share with you are, Giant Bites and Giant Sprites! The Little Bites and Sprites are so popular that I thought it would be fun to make big ones. I'm so glad I did. They are super cuddly.

This morning when the kids saw me taking photos of these guys they asked me to be in some photos with them. It's great to have some toy testers here at the house. The Sprites and Bites get a big thumbs up from the kidlets.

Something else I'm really proud of are the new sets of Teetoo cards I've created. If you've been following my blog for a long time, you may remember that I created cards to sell when I first opened Teetoo back in 2010. The cards arrived back from the printers the day before I had intended to open the shop and they were a complete disaster. Since then, I have sold the Teetoo Holiday Card Pack and the Send Love Mini Card Pack and I am really happy with their quality but I hadn't developed any more cards because I was so frustrated with that card debacle years ago. Recently, I decided that it would be nice to have some plain, inexpensive blank note cards on hand. I took a peek in a great little store in Hamilton that sells a nice assortment of cards and artwork by indie artists but I just couldn't find what I was looking for. In coming back to some of the artwork I created last year, I realized that I had just what I was looking for right here. I'll have all four new card packs for sale at the show tomorrow and I'll have them listed in the shop next week. I just love the way they turned out. They are simple and sweet. The colours are vibrant and the images have a lovely semi-gloss finish to them. They really are just what I wanted them to be.

I also took a few photos this week as I worked, to give you some peeks into my methods and procedures. I guess I worked pretty methodically, first I cut all the fabric for everything I was going to make. Then, I did all the sewing all at once. Finally, I hand stitched the closures and all the little details in the end. I'm still working on a bit of that today.

Baby Bee Buddy Rattles in production.


This is the stage in the Giant Sasquatch's production when I'm figuring out where to attach his eyes and nose before I attach his head to his body.

I tend to work all over the house when I've got a lot to do and lately I've been working in the family room instead of the studio. That way I can be with the family and keep an eye on the kids while I'm working. Plus, I need the space to spread out and have little stations for each job I'm working on.


Some new Baby Stars. These new Baby Stars are extra cute.

And I'll have a bunch of Baby Bee Rattles for sale.

I hope you'll come out and see me tomorrow at the TEST Springtime Marketplace at the Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media and Education, 918 Bathurst St. Toronto.

See you there!

♥ Andrea ♥