Pinterest Project Two

I know you have all been waiting for this.

Let's just say that maybe I should have counted those Dr. Seuss-inspired fruit kabobs as my second project.

The thing is, I have a lot of ideas pinned, I just don't always have the necessary materials and/or the actual skills to pull these things together.

Does anyone know where to get canvas fabric? Let me know, I am in over my head here.

Anyway, I figured that over the course of these projects I would try to do a recipe/food inspired project, something for the kids room, a repurposing project and at least one sewing project.

The problem with the sewing projects is even though I have a sewing machine, I am terrible at using it. My old Pots and Pans and Sticky Hands teacher/Girl Scout Leader would not be proud of the incredible lack of sewing skills I have retained from my childhood days of creative crafts.

To be fair, I think I am actually better at hand sewing than using the machine and in the last few weeks, I have sewed my fair share of torn stuffed animals, including Mr. Ducks, Ladybug pillow, and a giant dog, who's name escapes me at the moment, but who we travelled home from Disney World with a couple of years ago.

And even though I have used the sewing machine in the past successfully to make some cute little ribbon belts for the Lady, as well as her second Halloween costume--that was like three years ago and perhaps whipping out the machine at eight o'clock on a Friday night, while I should have been putting the Ladies to bed added a bit to the confusion and the almost epic fail of this project.

The Lady, age 1, in the tutu I sewed for her.

This project should have taken ten minutes to do. It took me over an hour.

The original pin:

 

Source: instructables.com via Aileen on Pinterest

How cute are these? T-shirt bags! I mean who doesn't have old t-shirts hanging out in their drawers that they never wear anymore, but don't quite want to get rid of? The best part is that they are super practical. You can use them for grocery bags or a gym bag. How cute would be a ballet bag made out of an old graphic tee? The best part is that you can just put them right in the washing machine to clean them.

I was inspired. I was duped by the simplicity. I was screwed at eight o'clock on a Friday with the promise of another Pinterest project and an intense desire to go all Office Space on my sewing machine.

Here is how it panned out.

 My sewing machine. With the instructions open. My problem was that bitch the bobbin.

 So, you take any old t-shirt. Here I am using a freebie from one of my husbands work events.

 Take a plate and trace around it. I used a blue piece of chalk from our art bin.

 Cut out the neck along the chalk mark. Then cut out the sleeves, leaving the seam in place. It is important to keep the seams so that it maintains some strength.

 Turn the shirt inside out and sew along the bottom seams. You should probably pin the two sides together. I omitted that step and allowed the Lady to operate the foot pedal. You can see how that worked out above.

 Probably not what this should look like.

This is also probably not supposed to happen.

 Turn t-shirt back to the right side out and viola.

So simple. Despite my lack of sewing skills, a few restarts and a ton of extra thread. I was able to sew the thing together into a bag. Pinterest Project Two--complete.

 The bag hanging on the back of a chair.

We decided to use it for QT's toys. The original pin says to use a Youth size M or L for the bags and those would probably be better for grocery bags or bags for the kids. My t-shirt was an Adult L and it is really roomy. Good thing we have a ton of crap to stuff it with.

I saw another little project that I wanted to try. Apple cars. How cute. The original pin made them with grapes but we just got a ton of blueberries at Costco so we used them instead.

Source: bentonbetterlunches.com via Aileen on Pinterest

 

The best part is that the Ladies helped make them and it actually got them to eat them. This was about ten minutes after the Lady told me she didn't like healthy snacks. Granted she was trying to angle for a Hershey's kiss (if I can't eat them--she can't have them either!) but I was pleased to see that the actual project distracted her from that snack choice for a while at least.

 

So, we will see what next weeks project brings and if anyone knows someone who gives free sewing lessons--you know where to find me.