Procrastination Part Deux

Ok, so I finally finished 1 blanket, and half finished another and half finished the car bag.  A little slow going today, as I am trying to finish before the really cold weather hits us and we actually have to leave the house.  Unfortunately I ran out of fleece for the car bag, so I do have to leave my hovel eventually.

But here's a start:

Blanket with attached pillow for the car.

Materials: 2 meters coordinating fleece, 13"x24" coordinating fleece, matching thread, polyfill (1 small bag will make at least 4 pillows)

Step 1: Try to get baby off the material, good luck with it.

Step 2: Sew right sides together leaving a 1/4"seam allowance. Also leave a 20" gap on the corner or side you plan to put the pillow on.

Step 3:
Sew a 1/2" top seam all the way around (except where the gap is)

Step 4:
Place right sides of the 13x24 fabric together, folded in half, and sew a 1/4" seam around, leaving the bottom end open for stuffing.

Step 5:
Stuff pillow with about 1/4 to 1/5th of the polyfill bag.  Push it as far back as you can sew you can sew the pillow into the blanket later.

Step 6:
Pin open side of pillow into open side of blanket, taking care to place it in straight and evenly on both sides. Sew across pillow and remaining open blanket seam with the 1/2"top seam.

Step 7:
Get husband to make funny faces while modeling the blanket, because the children are nowhere to be seen.  He's pretty handsome.

As for the other blanket, it will be finished this afternoon, I will post pics.  And the car bag will be finished tomorrow, I will post that on Thursday along with the tutorial.  And I will be sure to have something else ready for you too.

Thank you for bearing with me, and I promise to do better in the future.  Until tomorrow, I am still waiting for some christmas decoration upcycles.  Enjoy your day, enjoy your kids and happy crafting.

Part 1 and My Excuse; And Christmas Challenge #1

It's a snow day!!! Thats means that anything I had planned has officially been thwarted by 3 rugrats and a husband, who also will not go out in -35 (Celsius) weather.  So that means that I am going to do todays post in 2.  Ok and the worlds biggest procrastinator, aka me, has also come to a conclusion.  DO NOT LEAVE MY TUTORIAL POSTS UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE, ie tuesday morning as I'm rushing to finish something so that I can get it up for everyone.

So here's what I am going to do first, give you a sneak peek into what's coming up and then the challenge, like I promised yesterday.

I am going to turn this

Into 2 car blankets with attached pillows, because we live in the land of the frozen north; and also into a car bag for Chaos, who despite my best efforts refuses to keep shoes, socks, blankets, toques, mitts, etc on at any point in time, and again I am doing this because we live in the land of the frozen north.

And now for the challenge:

I know some, most of you parents out there have scads of artwork built up from your children, I know I do.  It gets displayed for some time, then out into a pile, separated by name, for them to decide what they want to hang onto in the future.  We have already done this with YaYa, as she is old enough to decide what was important, and also because she is a future art teacher and does not stop creating.
The problem, I have decided is that at christmas, all the teachers get together, and plan FABULOUS crafts and presents for my children to create (ok, ok I do it too), and as I was going through my christmas decorations I found and entire bucket of homemade stuff to display. Bare in mind that YaYa is in grade 6, but Supernan just started kindergarten and Chaos can barely have a functioning conversation.  I love everything equally, but there comes a time when you just don't have room to store or display everything for the holidays.  I do not want to get rid of this stuff either.
My challenge is this:
I would like the kids to repurpose, recycle, reuse the christmas decorations and make new ones.  I would love to see what you can come up with also.

I'm new to this link party thing, so any tips would be helpful, but please link up your ideas and pictures so that we can all see the wonderful things our kids can come up with.

I'll be back in a couple hours with the actual tutorial.