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My Week at Puppet Fantasy Camp

June 14, 2018

I just got back from the best vacation ever.

My husband and I went to the Beyond the Sock Puppetry Workshop where we spent a week learning how to make – and perform – hand and rod puppets.

So! Much! Fun!

Here we are with our instructors (and our finished puppets).

From left to right that’s Peter Linz, Noel MacNeal (both puppeteers for Sesame Street and lots of other shows/movies) and Pasha Romanowski (puppet-builder and pattern-designer extraordinaire).

What an incredible week! We spent every morning working on our puppets, and every afternoon learning how to perform them.

I’ll start with the making – the part that was definitely my happy place. 🙂

Everyone worked from the same pattern – which was a great way to learn. This year it was a cute cat. 🙂

Previous years have been rats, monkeys, chickens, penguins, and pirates.

Even though we all worked from the same pattern, we all used different materials and ended up with wildly different puppets. And we didn’t get to choose our materials – we got mystery boxes like on Master Chef.

I got this really thick, lush, grey fur.

And the fur my husband got may look familiar to some of you!

I used it for one of these monsters and in this tutorial showing how to cut fur. It’s one of my favorites!

We built a foam structure, staring with the mouthplate and basically building out from there.

After the foam structure was finished, we sewed all the fur and everything into a skin and slipped it over the foam – a very tight fit!

Then it was time to add eyes and accessories and all that and I forgot to take pictures because I was totally engrossed. 😉

But take a look at some of the finished puppets!

Here are mine and Alan’s.

I love his bowler hat and mustache!

Mine has a little gemstone stud in her nose and she was supposed to get purple feather streaks in her hair, but I ran out of time. I’ll add them later. 🙂

Here are some others. . .

Aren’t they awesome?

Now – the performing.

This was the part that was WAAAY out of my comfort zone – but I still loved it!

We were learning how to puppeteer on TV – not live – and that’s a very different thing. You have to make sure your puppet is standing up straight (a constant problem for me) and moving/looking in the right direction. For those of you who have watched my “welcome to the new month” videos where I show the new Ami Club pattern – you know I’m very directionally challenged when it comes to recording! 🙂

In that shot above, we’re trying to make all our puppets look in the same direction – which is surprisingly hard!

And in this one, you can see what we look like performing, and on the monitor.

We were trying to get our group of three centered on the screen, filling the screen, not showing our rods, and all looking at the camera. 🙂

And then they had us acting and lip synching and doing improv on top of all the puppeteering! So many things to remember!

We did a bunch of performances on the last night, including a big song and dance number that had over twenty of us packed into that space below our puppets. Crazy!

Really – it was a totally incredible week and we want to go back next year.

If any of you are interested in making puppets, Pasha has a terrific website with video tutorials and sells really well-designed patterns. It’s called Project Puppet and I can’t wait to make my next one!

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

How to Work with Eyelash Yarn – video tutorial

June 13, 2018

I’ve used eyelash yarn on exactly one project before.

The process was so awful that I didn’t pick up my crochet hooks again for a year.

Yes – I hated it that much. The finished result was adorable – but I couldn’t see my stitches while I was working. I couldn’t even find my loop again if my hook fell out!

That project was just the bottom border of a toddler dress – straight crochet with no shaping. The thought of using the stuff to crochet an amigurumi was unthinkable.

Except that I’be been thinking about it for a few years. 🙂

You see, I had this idea for a little hedgehog. A really cute little hedgehog with soft prickles made of eyelash yarn.

For years I set the idea aside because – eyelash yarn! *shudders*

Counting stitches? Increasing and decreasing? With eyelash yarn?

Nope. Nope. Nope.

But I kept coming back to it and thinking there has to be a way to crochet with this stuff without going crazy.

I looked at all the tutorials. Most of them suggest crocheting it together with a smooth yarn to help you see your stitches.

That’s what I did on the dress, and while that made the project possible, it wasn’t even a little bit fun.

Some of the tutorials suggested using a bigger hook. I tried that and it was still impossible to see the stitches. The thought of counting rows and doing increases and decreases was not going to happen.

Inconceivably – The Internet was no help.

So I got out some yarns and hooks and started to play.

And I came up with a solution!

At one point I was thinking about Turkey work embroidery (that’s the stitch I used to make the mane on this lion) and how the finished effect is similar to what I was trying to achieve with this yarn. For Turkey work on stuffed animals you make the animal first and then embroider onto the surface.

That’s it!

Instead of crocheting the actual body of the project with the eyelash yarn – where you have to be accurate with your counts and it’s really important to be able to see your stitches – I decided to crochet the body with smooth yarn and then surface crochet the prickles on top of that.

It worked!

Not only was it painless – it was fun! And easier and faster than Turkey work, for what it’s worth. 🙂

Here’s how.

Now you can add furry yarn to any crochet project! Just make the body first in regular yarn and then add the fur later.

Handy dandy links. . .

I tried a few different yarns, and by far my favorite was Lion Brand Fun Fur. My Joann’s had a pretty limited selection of colors, but if you buy online directly from Lion Brand you can get the full range. Look at all the fun colors!
That hedgehog I show in the video is a great pattern to start with – very simple and fast to make. Get the pattern here.

I can’t wait to see what you make!

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

June Free Calendar

June 2, 2018

Happy June!

I’ve had the idea for this prickly hedgehog in my head for over three years now – and I finally made her! I’m so excited with how she turned out (and how easy she was to make) that I had to include her on this month’s wallpaper. 🙂

Download your wallpaper below – there are options both with and without a June calendar.

Click here to download the one for computers/tablets.

Click here to download the same image with no calendar.

Click here to download the one for phones.

Click here to download the same image with no calendar.

If you want the Henrietta Hedgehog pattern, sign up for Ami Club! She’s the new pattern for June.

Have a great month! And happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Make a Wall Hanging! Add a Wonky Churn Dash Frame to Your Favorite Quilt Block

May 31, 2018

If you’re like most quilters – you have a LOT of patterns. 🙂

It’s always great to come up with another use for one of your favorites – especially if you can make an accessory to go WITH one of your best quilts.

You can always turn a single block into a wall hanging and hang it just as it is. But it’s extra fun to give that block a special frame to really set it off and make it into a piece of art. 🙂

And it’s even more fun if that frame uses a wonky version of a traditional quilt pattern.

For this wall hanging I used one of my favorite blocks from the Cuddly Cats quilt pattern – no resizing. So it’s a 10 inch block in the center, with a wonky churn dash frame around it. The entire wall hanging is 16 inches square.

Here’s what you need. . .

18 inch square piece of batting (I use Warm & Natural cotton batting.)
10 1/2 inch square background block
scraps (less than 1/4 yard of each color) for the cat applique, the churn dash frame, and the second background around the frame
fat quarter for back of wall hanging

Here’s how to make it using Quilt As You Go. . .

Step 1

Press your batting square. Center your background block in the center of the batting.

Quilt the square to the batting.

I used double wavy stripes on mine. You can find a tutorial for that here.

(That fabric is Sketch in Smoke from Timeless Treasures, available here.)

Step 2

Applique the design to the block – being sure to line the lower edge of the applique up with the lower edge of the background block.

Add a backing to your wall hanging (I used spray adhesive to baste it to the batting) and outline your applique. Here’s a closer look at the placement and the outlining.

You can find a complete video showing how I applique with fusible adhesive here.

Set that block aside while we make the pieces for the frame.

(That adorable fabric I used for the cat is Hash Dot in Lime from Michael Miller Fabrics, available here.)

Step 3

Cut four background corner pieces each 5 inches square. I used dark grey for mine.

Cut four right triangles with the legs (not the hypotenuse) anywhere between 4 and 5 inches long. The triangles should all be a little different.

Lay one triangle face down over the corner of one square, so that the points of the triangle (at each end of the hypotenuse) just hang over the edges of the square, as shown.

Sew the triangle to the square. Your seam allowance doesn’t need to be exactly 1/4 inch.

(I used yellow Little Stripes for the frame, and Cotton Couture in Charcoal for the background. Both are from Michael Miller Fabrics and you get get fat quarter bundles of those Little Stripes here.)

Step 4

Trim away the excess fabric from the corner.

Fold the triangle out and press.

Step 5

Trim the triangle down to a 3 inch square. (There’s a tutorial here showing how to use a square ruler for easy trimming.)

Make sure there is more than 1/4 inch between the points of the triangle and the edge of the background fabric square. That will make it impossible to accidentally chop off the points when you assemble the whole frame. 🙂 Yay for foolproof tricks!

Repeat for the other three squares, so you have the four corners of your churn dash block. The sizes and angles of the triangle should all be a little different.

Set them aside.

Step 6

Cut four background strips 12 inches x 3 inches.

Cut four frame strips 12 inches x 2 1/2 inches.

Sew the frame strips to the background strips and then trim those rectangles down to 10 1/2 inches x 3 inches. Make the seam between the two strips go at a slight angle – and make all the angles a little different to make your finished block more interesting.

You can see my finished rectangles in the next step. See how some are wider than others? And they all slant a bit?

Step 7

Lay out all the components as shown.

Play around with the placement of the frame pieces until you’re happy with how things look.

Step 8

Sew the side pieces of the frame to the sides of the block, sewing through the batting and backing too. For this and the rest of the project it’s important to use an accurate 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Press the side pieces open.

Step 9

Sew together the corners and strips for the top and bottom rows of the frame.

Press your seams in toward the strips – away from the corner triangles.

Step 10

Sew the top and bottom rows to the center of the block, being careful to line up the seams.

Press the whole block flat.

Step 11

Quilt the frame if you want to. (It doesn’t need it structurally, so just do it for looks if you like.) I stitched in the ditch around the outside edge of the frame and that’s it.

Trim away the excess batting around the edges and bind your mini quilt.

This video shows my favorite binding method.

If you like, there’s a tutorial here showing how to add a hanging sleeve to the back.

Finished!

Hang it on the wall and enjoy!

You can use the same method to make a fancy framed pillow cover. 🙂

Want to see more ideas for things you can do with a quilt pattern? Check out this round-up.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

The Big Bag – a free tote bag pattern

May 28, 2018

I LOVE this roomy tote bag!

This one hangs in my studio to hold packages ready to ship, but I also have a few that I take grocery shopping and to the farmer’s market.

I’m a big fan of reusable bags for grocery shopping, but a lot of them are on the small side. I need something that will hold more than one bag of chips! Or one of those big bags of grapefruit! This one fits the bill exactly.

Materials

two fat quarters of the main fabric
two fat quarters of the lining fabric
1/3 yard fabric for straps
scraps of fabric for pocket and pocket binding

Cut Out All the Pieces

These straight edges are great to cut with a rotary cutter. If you’ve never used these tools before, here’s a video showing how.

Main bag – cut two pieces, each 21 inches wide x 18 inches tall
Lining - cut two pieces, each 21 inches wide x 18 inches tall
Straps - cut two strips 6 inches wide x 28 inches long
Pocket - cut one piece 11 inches wide x 6 1/2 inches tall
Pocket binding - cut one piece 1 1/2 inches wide x 40 inches long

Ready? Let’s sew!

Step 1

We’ll start by prepping the straps. These are essentially doublefold strips - you can watch a video showing how to make them here.

Fold one of the fabric strips in half the long way, right sides facing out. Press. Open the strip back up and fold each long edge in toward the center fold. Press. Fold in half again along the center fold so that you have one long strip, four layers of fabric thick. This makes a nice, sturdy strap. Press.

Topstitch along both long edges, about 1/8 inch from the edge.

Repeat for the second strap. Set them aside for now.

Step 2

Now to prep the pocket. Fold and press your pocket binding fabric into doublefold tape – just like the straps, but don’t topstitch the edges. Here’s that video again.

Now we’re going to fold the bias tape around the raw edge of the pocket. Start in the bottom corner of the pocket.

Step 3

Stitch down the binding right up to the edge of where the pocket fabric ends. Don’t keep stitching! If you need to stop a stitch or two before the edge that’s ok, but don’t stitch farther.

Stop. Backstitch a bit. Take it out of the machine.

Step 4

Open up the binding and fold it into a neat miter, wrapping it right around the corner of the fabric. Slide it back under the presser foot, backstitch a bit, then stitch down to the next corner.

This video shows how to miter those corners.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you’re back where you started.

Step 5

Trim off the excess binding, leaving about 1/4 inch extra to finish the raw edge.

Stop stitching a few inches before the end so you have room to open up a bit of the binding at the end.

Step 6

Open up the last bit of the binding and fold that extra raw edge under.

Make it so it’s even with the edge of the pocket.

Step 7

Wrap the folded end back around the edge of the pocket piece and stitch it in place.

The pocket should be bound on all four sides and ready to attach to the bag.

The binding is especially nice to have at the top edge of the pocket to help reinforce it and keep it from stretching over time.

You’re almost done!

Step 8

Fold the top edge of one bag piece in half and mark the halfway point with a pin. Do the same thing with the pocket.

Use a clear ruler to position the pocket 5 1/2 inches from the top raw edge of the bag. Line the 5 1/2 inch mark along the top of the bag, and make one of the vertical marks line up with the center pin on the bag. Line the center mark on the pocket up on the same line and your pocket will be perfectly centered - with no measuring or math. :-)

Detail

Here’s a closer look showing how to use the pin markers to center the pocket.

See how both the pins are lined up at the 13 inch mark?

Step 9

Stitch the pocket in place down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side. Make sure you backstitch a couple of times at the stop and start of your stitching to give extra reinforcement to the stress points at the top corners of your pocket.

Done! You’re ready to put the bag together!

Step 10

Let’s start with the outside of the bag. Pin the two main fabric squares right sides together. Using 1/4 inch seam allowance, stitch around both sides and the bottom of the bag. Repeat with the two lining pieces.

Now we’re going to box the corners of the main and lining bags so that your bag will have depth. Watch a video demonstrating how to box corners here.

Step 11

Open out one bottom corner of the bag so that the side seam and center bottom seam line up, and the corner of the bag makes a point.

Measure down 2 1/2 inches from the tip of the stitching (NOT the tip of the fabric triangle - ignore that flap of seam allowance) and draw a line perpendicular to the side seam.

Step 12

Stitch right on the line you drew. Trim away the excess fabric.

Repeat for the other corner, and for both corners of the lining.

Step 13

Turn the main bag right side out. Leave the lining inside out.

Pin the edge of one strap to the top edge of the bag, 4 1/2 inches in from the side seam.

Repeat for the other end of the strap.

Repeat with the second strap on the other side of the bag.

Step 14

Put the main bag inside the lining, with the straps sandwiched between the two layers. Since the lining is inside out and the main bag is right side out, you should end up with the right sides together. Line up the side seams and pin the layers together around the top edge of the bag.

Step 15

Using 1/4 inch seam allowance, stitch almost all the way around the top edge of the bag. Leave the space between the two ends of one handle unstitched, so you can pull the bag through the opening. Be sure to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stitching. There will be some pressure on the edges as you pull the bag through.

Step 16

Reach into the opening and pull the main bag through. Pull through the handles, then pull the lining right side out and tuck it down into the bag. Press around the top edge, being especially careful to press the open edges evenly.

Step 17

Topstitch around the bag, about 1/8 inch from the top edge. Be sure that the folded edges of the opening you used for turning are lined up and that you catch both layers in the topstitching to hold them together. No hand stitching!

I wanted the topstitching thread to match the fabric of the main bag AND the lining, so I used green thread as my main thread and blue thread as my bobbin thread. The stitching is green on top and blue on the bottom. Neato!

Finished!

The handles are the perfect length for throwing over your shoulder and the bag is roomy enough to hold three big bags of chips, or a bunch of veggies from the farmers market – including lots of healthy but bulky green leafies!

Want to make a different size tote bag? I’ve got two more free patterns!

The Trick or Treat Tote Bag is great for trick or treating – but also for carrying library books, lunch, and more.

The Mini Tote Bag is quite a bit smaller. It’s great for small toys and snacks. When my daughter was very little we kept a few of these packed with “special” toys that we only played with on outings – like at a restaurant. One had a few trucks and cars, another had crayons and a cute notepad, another had a handful of action figures. They were great grab and go bags. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Scribbly Outlining Your Applique Pieces

May 23, 2018

Want to learn how to make a quilt with an easy online workshop – totally free?

Sign up for Let’s Make a Quilt here. You’ll learn how to get started, the tools and supplies you’ll need, and how to make a quilt from start to finish using Quilt As You Go and applique with fusible adhesive.

It’s the easiest, most fun way to make an applique quilt. You can do it!

There are SO MANY different ways to outline applique pieces.

A lot of people applique with satin stitch or decorative stitching like blanket stitch. I demonstrate how to use decorative stitches in one of the lessons in my Fusible Applique Made Easy Class on Craftsy. Here’s an example of some of that stitching.

There’s blanket stitch around the bottom of the eyes, another stitch around the belly patch, and straight stitching everywhere else.

Fancy stitching can be fun, but I usually outline with a simple straight stitch and black thread. I love the cartoony look it gives and I think it really suits my applique designs. Plus it’s super easy!

(A lot of people worry that their fabric will fray if they just do a straight stitch outline. I posted a photo of one of my daughter’s quilts after over a year of constant use and many trips through the washer and dryer. Click here to see how it holds up.)

Sometimes, if I want a thicker line, I use a thicker thread. I like using 12 wt. thread from Sulky Petites and I’ve got a post here where I talk about what you need to do to work with thicker thread – what needle to use, what to use in the bobbin, etc.

Sometimes when I want a thicker line but I’m too lazy to change my needle (like maybe just on cat whiskers) I’ll use regular thread and go over the stitching two to three times, being careful to stitch right over the previous stitching so it looks like one solid, thicker line. You can see that in this cat.

I did most of the outlining with regular thread, but you can see the line is thicker on the whiskers and the mouth. That’s where I went over it a few times.

Lately I’ve been wanting to play around a bit – make the outlining more scribbly, more like the lines in my sketchbook.

So I tried it! It took me a few blocks to get just the look I was trying for.

It took three rounds of stitching to get this look. Two just looked like a mistake – three looked intentional.

It’s kind of hard to deliberately go off the line! I’ve made hundreds of these blocks and by now it’s kind of automatic to follow the line as closely as possible. 🙂 I found it helped to deliberately ignore the line on pass two, to just pretend it wasn’t there and outline again as if it was a blank piece. Then on round three, if the first two lines were still too much on top of each other, I would deliberately veer off line. Make sure you cross over the line when you veer – you don’t want another line consistently inside or outside your original line. You want to cross over so sometimes it’s inside and sometimes it’s outside. That gives the best sketchy look.

Bonus! Four lines of stitching looks pretty much exactly like three. That means there’s no real benefit to doing four trips around the whole thing, but you can use that extra trip in some places to avoid having to start and stop to go around pieces like ears and muzzles and necks. For that snippet you see above, there are three rows of stitching around everything except the bit of the head that overlaps the ear. I went over that bit four times so I could stitch the ear without ever having to stop and tie a knot.

Handy Dandy Links

Fusible Applique Made Easy (my Craftsy class that includes my Woodland Critters quilt pattern and a great lesson on using decorative stitching)
How Durable Is That Straight Stitch Outline?
thick 12 wt. black thread
Parliament of Owls quilt pattern
Playing with Thread Weight tutorial
Cuddly Cats quilt pattern
Playful Puppies quilt pattern

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Turn Any Quilt Block Patterns into Cute Coasters – an easy tutorial

May 11, 2018

I love getting all the mileage I can out of my quilt patterns – using them for lots of other projects besides quilts.

I’ve got a whole page here where I’m collecting all kinds of different ideas for things you can make – with links to more info and tutorials. 🙂

One of my favorite things to make is felt coasters. I’ve got them scattered all over my house, in lots of different designs. The cats you see above are some of my favorites!

It’s super easy.

Choose the design you want to use and print that pattern page out at 40% size. Any square block from any of my patterns.

Your print window may look slightly different than this (it’s different for every computer, printer, and operating system) but it should be similar.

Look for something like that “scale” entry. It will probably default to 100%, but you can change it to anything you like. Change it to 40%.

From this point on, follow the instructions you’ll find at this post showing how to make some cute bear coasters. (And if you want to try out the technique – those bear patterns are free.) You can use those instructions to make cute coasters from any of my square quilt block patterns. Just reduce the pattern size to 40%. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Felix the Fat Cat Crochet Pattern

May 9, 2018

Felix the Fat Cat is in the shop!

Felix was the Ami Club pattern in January and now he’s available to everyone. 🙂

He was also the first pattern to be released after the merger between Shiny Happy World and FreshStitches – so I made a crochet version of my bestselling sewn softie pattern, Franklin the Fat Cat.

I even have a quilted version of this guy – one of my favorite blocks in the Cuddly Cats quilt pattern.

What can I say? I like fat cats. 🙂

I liked Felix so much that I made him three times, in three different yarns so they’d be three different sizes.

So cute!

Want to make your own Felix?

Get the pattern here.

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

20% Off All Patterns with Cats & Dogs

May 7, 2018

It’s Cats & Dogs month at Shiny Happy World – so we’re having a sale on all patterns with cats or dogs!

Use the discount code BESTFRIEND for 20% off all patterns that feature a cat or a dog – or lots of cats and dogs. 🙂

Shop here for cat patterns.

Shop here for dog patterns.

The Think BIG giant applique class is also included in the sale! It includes the patterns for this giant cat poster. . .

. . . and this giant dog quilt.

Sale ends Monday 5/14 at midnight eastern time.

After you finish your project, don’t forget to share it in the Cats & Dogs Craft-Along happening all month!

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Cats and Dogs Craft-Along!

May 4, 2018

It’s Cats & Dogs month here at Shiny Happy World, so we’re having a Cats & Dogs craft-along!

It’s so easy to play along – whether you sew, knit, embroider, or crochet!

Choose any Shiny Happy World or FreshStitches pattern with a cat or a dog.
Make it!
Have fun. 🙂
Snap a photo of the finished project.
Post your photo in the Shiny Happy People group, tagged with #CatDogCAL.
Share the love, telling everyone who posts photos how awesome their work is. 🙂

We’ll choose a couple of winners on June 1 and the winners get to pick out a free pattern!

If you choose to make Duke the Dog (the new Ami Club pattern) be sure to ALSO tag it #DukeCAL. There’s a special prize just for projects made with that new pattern. 🙂

Happy stitching!

Best,
Wendi

Handy Dandy Links

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