written by marieann

I made this dog for Caroline for Christmas. It’s a cute little guy that stands up and has plenty of volume for being pricked by pins. I used this adorable little doggie print fabric and it has blue eyes (like me!) I used a purchased pattern (I’ll edit with the exact pattern ASAP) so this is only a show n’ tell post. But feel free to design your own animal pin cushions.

written by threadslinger

This soup is from an excellent vegeterian cook book called The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet by Nava Atlas. It is an awesome book because the recepies have little ingredients (5 or less as is clearly indicated by title of book. This recepie for potato leek soup is delicious, makes you feel all cozy and awesome because most likely you have all the ingredients except for the leeks (unless you are an avid leek eater which I am not.)

Ingredients

2 T butter
3 to 4 leeks (medium size)
6 large potatos
2 veggie bouillon cubes
1 cup low fat milk

Directions

1. Heat up butter in pot and simmer leeks after chopping them into managable pieces.

2. While leeks are cooking peel and chop up potatos. Make sure to watch leeks so they don’t turn brown but do get wilted.

3. After leeks are cooked put in potatos and add enough water to cover the potatos. Add in boullion cubes and I always add bay leaves to my soups since it gives it a nice flavor.

4. Cook until potatos are soft (like 30 min) then remove about 1/2 C of the potatos with a slotted spoon and smash them down. Add back into soup.

5. Lastly add the milk and have delicious cozy soup.

written by marieann

I saw one of these at the store for $25! It was in my hand to buy when my mom told me that I could make my own. I could! This is great to wear around the house in the mornings when you’re doing your makeup and hair. I sometimes cook breakfast in it before I get dressed too. This is also a very cheap project.

Supplies
Fabric — fleece or “towel” material (or even a towel!) (you need enough to wrap around your body about 1.5 times
1/2″ wide elastic — about the length of your chest around.
About 8-12″ of velcro
White cotton fabric (thin like a sheet)
Iron-on transfer paper
A full roll of 1″ single fold bias tape
Thread

Tools
Sewing machine
Scissors
Iron
Computer (to print copies of your design!)
Pins

Instructions
1. Cut the fabric the correct length. It should wrap around your whole body once then around your chest a second time.
2. Pin and sew the bias tape around the top edge of the fabric. It should equally overlap the front and back. Be sure that you sew on the very edge of the bias tape so that you have room to put the elastic thru.
3. Put a large safety pin thru the elastic and work that thru the casing. When you’ve threaded the elastic all the way thru, try on the robe. Pull the elastic as tight as you need so that it fits comfortably around your chest. Not too tight so that you get elastic marks but tight enough that it does indeed stay above your breasts instead of sliding down. Sew the edges of the elastic down on the ends when you’re finished.
4. This is the trickiest part. It’s time to sew on the velcro. You need to sew about a big chunk of velcro (about 8-12 inches) on one end of the robe. (That is, work with only one piece of the velcro at a time, sew the first piece on the very edge).
5. Put the robe on you and wrap it tight. Pin the second piece of velcro where the end overlaps. This is NOT on the very end. This should be approximately 4-6 inches from the end of the second side of the robe. This is also not on the same side as the front was sewn on (that is, you’re sewing the velcro on the opposite side of the fleece — the first piece was on the wrong side of the fabric but this is now on the right side).

6. You may want to put a small piece of velcro (like an inch) on the end of the second side as well as another piece about 4-6 inches in from the first edge but I didn’t do this. I found that it stays tucked in fine.
7. Using iron on paper, transfer images you want onto the think white fabric.
8. Sew those designs on using a satin stitch. You may want to go over it twice to fill in the stitches darker.

written by threadslinger

These were a present for Miss Marie (modeling them above) for Christmas and awesome gloves because your digits are free to do things. I realize it is pretty cold outside for some people to expose bare fingers, but I still think these gloves rule.

Materials
Yarn (2 kinds)
Crochet needle (I use the second biggest one because I use fat yarn)

Instructions
Do a single crochet stitch and measure it to your wrist, then loop the end of the yarn around making a circle. Continue to crochet until it gets above the bottom knucles of your fingers.

Then poke your thumb through the stitches and snip a piece of the yarn to make the thumb hole. (This part is tricky, you may have to do some knotting to avoid your whole glove coming undone).

Then around the hole do a single crochet stitch until it goes to the top of your thumb. Go back to the glove (switch colors if desired) and stitch until it is above your second knuckle. To see how to do the flowers check out this post I did awhile back.

written by marieann

I am so into chocolate and teal these days. I found this awesome skinny dresser on the street near my house and I had to have it (I love NYC for awesome free finds). I took it home and after a couple of months of slowly working on this and planning, I refinished it. I am very happy with it and learned some very important lessons. This dresser is pretty self-explanatory but I have some tips on how to make it (and things NOT to do).

Supplies
Furniture to refinish
1 quart of interior paint (I chose semi-gloss, but more on the choice of paint later)
Scrapbook papers
1 qt of ACRYLIC polyurethane (do not get the plain kind because that has an amber tint to it and will change the color of your paint/papers)

Tools
Fine grade sand paper/block
Paint brush
Allene’s glue (or some other TACKY glue)
Circle cutter (in the scrapbooking section of stores)

Instructions
1. If you have any pulls or hardware on the furniture, remove all of them.

2. Sand the piece with a soft grain paper. I have a few hints here. First, if you are painting with a darker color, your wood does NOT have to be completely raw again (assuming you’re dealing with a pre-painted piece of furniture; if you are painting over a piece that had previously been stained you DO have to sand it totally clean). Also, do NOT use a really coarse sandpaper as it will put mini scratches into your wood.

3. Wipe the whole thing down with a wet rag (or those awesome little sawdust picker upers).

4. Paint it! This is probably obvious but in case it’s not, paint with the grain of the wood and also be sure that you smooth everything. You do NOT want bubbles of paint (check the edges of drawers, etc. because paint tends to pool there). DOUBLE coat it.

5. Here’s the fun part. Cut out lots of different shapes from your scrapbook paper. Glue them to your furniture using Allene’s glue. Be sure that you press all the edges down. It is normal that your paper might have very tiny ripples in it because of the moisture in the glue. This will go away.

6. After everything is dried solid (I would wait over night), coat everything in THREE layers of the polyurethane. Be sure to read the directions and also do it in a ventilated area.

7. After you let it dry very hard over night, screw back in the pulls.

8. An alternative fixture note: I had originally planned to paint the shapes onto my furniture after the chocolate house paint dried. However, I found that my acrylic paints didn’t stick to the chocolate paint. Because I used semi-gloss paint, it just slid off. This looked horrible and this is why I chose the paper (which ultimately I liked much better). If you would like to paint on your details then you must use a matt house paint. This is fine because you can buy the acrylic polyurethane in gloss and make that effect if you like it.

written by marieann

Yay! This baby is done! It’s so warm and geeky. It was pretty hard to sew in my tiny apartment, I was doing some acrobatics to lay this all out. I have already done a tutorial on how to sew a single quilt block, here. This post shows you an alternative way to do the quilt backing. I think this way is both easier and cooler than using bias tape.

Note: these instructions are based on a 4.5 inch final border added. If you would like to change the size of the border, you can.

Supplies
Quilt top
Batting
Fabric backing material

Tools
Iron
Sewing machine
Pins
Marking chalk
Ruler
Fabric marker

Use this hand drawn instructions ALONG with the written ones. Be sure to click to view the largest version.

Instructions
1. If your quilt is an adult-sized quilt then you will need to sew two lengths of your backing fabric together to create the desired width.

2. Lay the fabric backing on the floor WRONG side facing up.

3. Use your ruler and draw a line with the chalking pencil FIVE inches in from the edge on the top and right sides of the fabric.

4. Line up the batting at that line you just drew.

5. Using a ruler, draw a line 4.5 inches in from the edge of the batting with the fabric marker on the top and right edges.

6. Next, stack the pieced quilt top on top of the batting RIGHT side facing up inside the square that you just drew in step five on the batting.

Remember: right now you’re only working with the top and right edges.

7. Pin the three layers together half an inch from the edge of the quilt top.

8. Cut the batting five inches bigger than the quilt topping on the bottom/left.

9. Cut the fabric batting five inches bigger than the batting on the bottom/left.

10. Fold the backing layer over so that the fabric’s right side is showing on the front (that’s your border!). Press that down. At this point, your backing fabric should be filled with batting in the border and should overlap the quilt top by 1/2 an inch.

11. Fold under the backing 1/4 an inch and pin down to the quilt top. There should be no raw edges anywhere showing. Leave about three inches from each corner unpinned.

12. Using a zig zag stitch (I chose a contrasting thread color, you could make it blend in tho if you’d like), sew the fabric backing thru all layers (at this point there are four because you are sewing thru the backing twice).

13. When you’ve sewn all four sides, it’s time for the corners. Just fold it and make a pretty tight corner so that it’s a 45 degree angle. Zig zag stitch again.

14. And you’re done!

written by threadslinger

Over the summer (thanks to my good friend 2 buck Chuck…well more like 3 buck Chuck in NYC) I drank a lot of wine. And, for some reason I always saved the corks. At first it was just a few stacked on my microwave, but pretty soon they had to be moved to a coffee mug, then a bigger coffee mug and finally, a zip lock. I needed something to do with all these corks I had and so I was inspired to make this wine cork board. It is super easy to make and only requires that you drink a lot of wine, who can say no to that?

Materials
Wine corks
glue
Old picture frame with the glass and picture parts taken out (this is for the shell of the corkboard.)

Directions
Arrange corks however you want so that they fit inside your frame. Then glue down and your finished you have your very own awesome wine cork board. A little tip, it is cool if you glue the corks so the label shows because it then can serve a pratical function of a cork board while at the same time showing off your awesome wine taste.

written by marieann

My friends and I made this vegetarian cookbook together with all our favorite recipes. You can make your own by downloading this word template, here.

You can also download my cookbook and try some of my favorite foods. Right click and download to save it HERE.

written by marieann

I made this quilt the summer before I started college. The backing is the same floral of the border — a fabric I adored in my mom’s stash and she sweetly gave me for this quilt. I didn’t quilt it but instead tied it. I wanted to be done already, tehehe.

written by threadslinger

Since it is finally starting to get cold in New York I decided it was time to start wearing winter gloves, scarves and hats. Except that if I wear one of the awesome beanies I learned how to make (in non-crochet speak) then my hair is all messed up for my professional job. So, I invented this headband/ear warmer. It has buttons underneath so you don’t have to slide it on your head but instead can just button it on over your ears. Plus, it has a flower cause thats just pretty.

Materials needed:

Yarn
Crochet needle
Thread
Buttons
Sewing needle

Directions

Step 1:

Crochet (single stich) a rectangle long enough to touch behind your head and wide enough to cover your ears.

Step 2:

After you are done crocheting that you need to sew two buttons to one end. Loosen the yarn across from the buttons so that it loops around the buttons.

Step 3:

For the finishing touch I crocheted a little flower. Do this by doing a crochet chain and then link together to make a loop. Then keep on building off of that loop (same method) until you have a flower. Attach with a different color of thread by hooking to headband to make flower middle.

Done, no more cold ears or hat hair